Peruvians waving banners and dressed as pigs threw their weight between their country's breakfast - 'Pan con Chicharrón' - a pork sandwich - which has made it to the final of the virtual World Breakfast Championship, which has been organised by a Spanish streamer.

After multiple rounds featuring 16 countries the pork sandwich will head off against the Venezuelan arepa. The winner will be decided by votes cast on social media via TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube.

From Peru's wide and varied selection of breakfasts, the winner was Pan con Chicharrón, accompanied by tamales and coffee, a Sunday classic in many families.

The basic ingredients of Pan con Chicharrón are fried pork, fried sweet potato, and a creole sauce made with onion, lemon, and hot pepper, which gives it a variety of flavors, including salty, sweet, spicy, and sour.

This food competition has led several local authorities in Peru to organize mass events to distribute free portions of Pan con Chicharrón so that people can vote online to win.

In the Lince district of Lima, Mayor Malca Schnaiderman brought several restaurants to a park to distribute 500 free servings of a jumbo-sized version of the famous Peruvian breakfast, with people arriving early to line up to enjoy it.

"We are very proud to be Peruvian and to have the best food in the world, which is Pan con Chicharrón, part of our very essence, our culture," said Francis Allison, the mayor of the Magdalena del Mar district.

In addition to these mayors, other authorities throughout Peru are taking this competition very seriously and are also organizing various activities for Peruvians and foreigners to vote for Peru's Pan con Chicharrón.

Peru is known worldwide for its excellent cuisine. The Peruvian restaurant Maido in Lima was named the best restaurant in the world in the 2025 edition of The World's 50 Best Restaurants, in addition to the Central Restaurant, which also won the best restaurant in the world in 2023.

AP Video shot by Cesar Barreto, produced by Mauricio Muñoz