World’s best food images served up

An incredible image, The Elderly Having Delicious Food, by Chinese photographer Xiaoling Li, is the Overall Winner of the World Food Photography Awards sponsored by Tenderstem, the world’s greatest celebration of food photography.

The image, which had first won the Food for the Family supported by The Felix Project category, was taken in Shuangliu Ancient Town in the Sichuan Province of China. “The elderly ladies in the picture are ‘setting up a Dragon Gate formation’,” says Xiaoling Li. “This is an expression used in China to refer to neighbourhood friends coming together to chat, gossip and share stories. Food makes these people happy; they enjoy a beautiful and joyful life.”

UK shooters honoured

Photographers from the UK triumphed; from nearly 10,000 entries submitted from 70 countries around the world there were 48 UK photographers with finalist images, including winners of 6 of the competition’s 25 categories.

These winners were Emma Stoner from the Champagne Taittinger Wedding Food Photographer category, Lizzie Mayson won the Claire Aho Award for Women Photographers, Susan Lang won the Food in the Field category with her capture of a litter of free range Large Black piglets, Britain’s only all black pig, titled ‘Hogging the Limelight’.

Other UK winners included Paul Hughes, who won the Food Influencer category, Costas Millas won the Hotel Art Group Food Stylist Award and Jo Kearney won the Politics of Food category.

A free-to-enter exhibition of all 185 Finalist images premieres at The Mall Galleries, London, running from 21st – 25th May. A selection of images will also be exhibited at Fortnum and Mason from 2nd June, as well as the Museum of the Home from 3rd June – 7th September. To see the online gallery of all the 2025 finalists, visit worldfoodphotographyawards.com 

Entries for the 2026 edition of the competition will open later this year in September.