About Food Glorious Food!

Every recipe tells a story. And every family has one – a recipe that tugs at your heart strings, makes you laugh, brings back memories and sums up all that’s great about food: its ability to delight our senses; bring people together and spread joy and happiness.

This is a competition anyone can enter – and the prize couldn’t be more mouth-watering: the winner will get to see their dish on the shelves of Marks & Spencer stores all over the UK as well as receiving a cash prize of £20,000.

Food, Glorious Food has scoured the country in search of a very special dish that everyone will be able to buy and eat.

Each of the regional episodes tours the country in search of the great and the good. Queues of people clutching mouth-watering cakes, tarts, pies and puddings arrive at the location, vying to win the right to have their dish in the final. Presenter Carol Vordaman meets the entrants as they wait anxiously in line.

Dishes prepared, each contestant has to face one of the Food Glorious Food judges who hand out rosettes to the dishes they feel most delight the senses and capture the imagination, but before the day is out they must each choose their dish of the day.

At Judges HQ, the four remaining regional contestants have to cook their beloved recipe again, this time for all four judges to taste. The judges then do battle to pick just one to dish to go through to the semi-final and represent their region.

Each of the two semi-final shows feature three winners from the regional heats - they are asked to cook their dishes on a scale they’ve never been cooked before, preparing 500 perfect portions for 500 guests at a special diner. Each semi-finalist gathers together an army of supporters to help them take on the challenge of a lifetime.

Guests at the big dinner blind taste each of the three competing dishes and each vote for the dish they believe deserves a place on the shelves of M&S. In each of the two semi-finals, only ONE dish goes through to the Grand Final.

Both finalists then make their way to London to work with M&S’s to turn their recipes into a final product that could ultimately end up in stores across the country.

With dishes ready, thousands of samples are distributed around the country, each potential customer that tries the dish voting on whether or not they would buy the dish.

As the results from the trial runs are counted, the winner of Food Glorious Food is revealed.