The awards, which take place on 28 and 29 September on London's Brick Lane along with a series of seminars and entertainment, have opened entries to vendors from the Continent for the first time with Noma co-founder Claus Meyer and French burger seller Kirstin Frederick of Le Camion Qui Fume already lined up to represent their respective countries.
Organised by British Street Food founder and journalist Richard Johnson, the awards are designed to showcase the best talent within the street food arena and Johnson, who is also working with the Government and Leon to help improve school dinners, believes this year has the strongest entries yet.
“It feels like the message of street food – that good quality, fun food should be accessible to everyone – is finally getting through," he said.
Exciting time
Johnson said the awards would be celebrated at a particularly exciting time for British Street Food as it helps to move traders into more permanent sites.
The organisation has been working with SSP to install a series of street-food pop-ups at Manchester Airport and will collaborate further to help line-up traders for similar projects at King's Cross, Euston and Gatwick Airport.
British Street Food is also working with Land Securities, a sponsor of the awards, to help it pick five street traders each month, drawn from the best of the awards, to sell at Trinity Kitchen, a new area at retail centre Trinity Leeds that will open in October.
Street food app
To help 'future-proof' street food, the British Street Food team has also developed an app for iOS and Android devices that will show the user where their nearest street food trader is, their hours of trading and details of their daily specials.
Users will also be encouraged to photograph, review and rate the food they buy, with the app set to produce the world's first Street Food Top 10.