On Oct. 24, Whitaker Bank Ballpark will host The Feeders’ Cup Invitational, an inaugural event where 20 food trucks will compete to qualify as the best in the commonwealth and beyond, with attendees helping decide the winners.
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It’s the first event of the week-long Breeders’ Cup Festival taking place from Oct. 24-31. Trucks will compete for the top prizes in five categories, with each winner earning the right to sell and serve their full menu at the #Sharethelex Winners’ Stretch at Short Street and Cheapside from Oct. 27-31. (The Feeders’ Cup is run by Smiley Pete Publishing, the parent company of Business Lexington.)
The 20 trucks will be representing several cities from Kentucky and the surrounding areas, including Lexington, Louisville, Georgetown, Nicholasville, Huntington and Cincinnati, and possibly some trucks from Columbus, Ohio, Chattanooga and Indianapolis.
The event will take place from 3 to 10 p.m. on the field of Whitaker Bank Ballpark, home of the Lexington Legends. Trucks will be lined up along the dirt warning track in front of the outfield wall, and dining tents and heating lamps will be set up throughout the area.
Three musical acts — Johnny Conqueroo, Coralee and the Townies and Sheisty Khrist — will be performing live music throughout the day. Ticket prices are $20 when ordered in advance through Feederscup.com, or $30 upon entering the festival. Partial proceeds raised at The Feeders’ Cup are being donated to God’s Pantry.
Winning trucks will be selected in two ways — half of the vote will be based on a blind taste tests by a panel of judges, while the other half will be based on the people’s choice. Voting will be open for visitors all day and will close at 9 p.m., with the winners being revealed at 9:30.
Participating trucks will prepare one complete dish of their best work for the judges and a three-bite sample of their regular menu for guests, which will enable attendees to possibly taste all 23-bite samples and vote for their favorites.
“There’s not a whole lot of competitions that are set up like this,” said Robbie Morgan, the director of the event. “A lot of food festivals have a people’s choice, but I haven’t seen it super done at the food truck-level.”
The five categories that voters will be deciding on are Best Sweet, Best Southern Classic, Best World Fusion, Best Farm to Table and Best Overall.
“Your job really is to vote for the winners,” said Morgan.
Morgan said events like The Feeders’ Cup and Crave Lexington not only help promote the community and have a cultural impact but also help broaden the culinary horizons of locals or visitors.
“A lot of people who come to Crave, for instance, are people who are already foodies, but then we have a ton of families who are coming because it’s so family driven, and they have no idea that maybe their kid is going to try tuna sashimi and love it,” she said.
Morgan wants a wide variety of people to participate in the people’s choice vote, not just “foodies,” but also people who are very particular, who will be eating things outside of their comfort zone and who will be honest and personal in how they judge the food.
Morgan said having people vote on the food produces some surprising results. For instance, the winner of Best Farm to Table at Crave Lexington was Middle Fork’s handmade goetta — a mixture of ground meat, oats and spices.
“It’s fun that it’s not just driven by popularity and price, it’s driven truly by taste, and that’s what the potential of having a people’s choice at Feeders’ Cup is, is really you get to see that people aren’t as pedestrian as you thought,” she said. “Maybe the masses are more interested in exploring different kinds of menus.”
Morgan hopes The Feeders’ Cup evolves and continues as an annual event. She said part of the event’s purpose is to “really promote what Lexington has to offer,” and to help make others aware that Lexington is a place where exciting things like this are consistently happening.