According to Guinness World Records, Chef Smith from Ghana “does not hold the GWR title for the longest cooking marathon” and his certificate is bogus.
There has been a lot of praise and celebration for Chef Smith, who made headlines recently for supposedly breaking a culinary record.
But questions regarding the veracity of his claim started to arise, which prompted Guinness World Records to look into it.
Guinness World Records explained the problem in an official reply to an email from GHone TV, saying: “No, this is not accurate at all. That is not our certificate, and he does not own the GWR title. The actual record holder is Alan Fisher of Ireland, who completed a 119-hour, 57-minute cooking marathon in Matsue, Shimane, Japan, from September 28 to October 3, 2023.
The Ghanaian culinary community as a whole, as well as some of Chef Smith’s supporters, are shocked and disappointed by this news. His alleged accomplishment was widely hailed as a major turning point for the nation’s culinary arts.
Ghanaian chef Ebenezer Smith, also referred to as Chef Smith, said on July 2, 2024, that he had received a certificate from Guinness World Records for breaking the record for the longest cooking marathon by an individual.
On February 1, 2024, Chef Smith embarked on his cook-a-thon adventure. Although his original goal was 1,200 hours, he ended his marathon on March 6, 2024, having cooked for 820 hours.
“The longest cooking marathon (individual) is 802 hours 25 minutes and was achieved by Ebenezer Smith (Ghanaian) in Spintex, Accra, Ghana,” the record certificate inscription states. February 1, 2024 – March 6, 2024.”
But immediately after declaring his Guinness Record achievement, he was taken into custody by the La police on suspicion of “defrauding one of the sponsors, Amadia Shopping Mall, of his cooking marathon of about GHC350,000”.
