World Porridge Day 2026: The Wonderfully Weird History of the World Porridge Championship

Grab your favourite bowl, because World Porridge Day 2026 lands on Saturday, 10 October. It sounds like a made-up excuse to eat breakfast for the third time that day, but porridge is taken seriously enough around the world to have its own world championship, its own trophy, its own folklore about the devil, and, as of last year, an Australian on the podium.

Here’s the full, slightly ridiculous story of how a Scottish village of 700 people ended up running the porridge Olympics, and how an Aussie food stylist gatecrashed it.

How It All Started: A Dog Walk in Carrbridge, 1994

The World Porridge Making Championship began with Roger Reed, owner of the Fairwinds Hotel and secretary of the Carrbridge Community Council, out walking his dog in the woods behind the hotel in 1994. He was trying to think up something that would put the tiny Highland village of Carrbridge on the map, the way other small towns had built their own quirky “world championships” for everything from bog snorkelling to wife carrying.

Porridge was the answer. Reed teamed up with local restaurateur Duncan Hilditch, and between the two of them they wrote the rules and lined up judges within hours. The Community Council backed the idea, more than 700 invitations went out to hospitality businesses across Scotland, and on 11 September 1994 the very first champion was crowned: Florence Ritchie, owner of Pine View B&B, right there in Carrbridge.

The Rules (Surprisingly Strict for a Bowl of Oats)

There are two categories, and they could not be more different. The Golden Spurtle category, named after the traditional wooden Scottish porridge-stirrer, is brutally simple: oatmeal, water and salt, nothing else. No sugar, no cream, no cheeky splash of whisky. It is porridge in its purest form, judged on texture alone.

The Speciality category is the opposite: total creative freedom. Past entries have included savoury oatmeal with bankers (yes, really) and black bean patties. A People’s Choice award joined the lineup in 2012, and a Junior category followed in 2018, so the next generation of porridge fanatics gets a shot too.

From a Village Fete to a Global Event

For its first decade or so, the championship was very much a local affair, dominated by Scottish competitors. That changed in 2009, when Matthew Cox from Oregon became the first-ever overseas winner, followed a year later by Canadian Catherine Caldwell taking out the Speciality title. By 2023, competitors were arriving from around 20 different countries, and the event even went virtual for two years during COVID rather than skip a beat.

Along the way it has built its own hall of fame. Chris Young has won the Speciality category four times, Lisa Williams has twice taken home the Golden Spurtle itself, and the whole thing was serious enough by 2025 to get its own documentary, aptly titled “The Golden Spurtle”, made by Australian director Constantine Costi.

The Village That’s Divided Over Its Own Championship

Here is the detail we cannot get over: Carrbridge has a population of roughly 700 people, and by some estimates around 600 of them are fully on board with the championship taking over their village every year, while about 100 would honestly rather it didn’t. Small-town politics, but make it porridge.

For the ones who are on board, it is a proper spectacle. The day kicks off with a pipe band parade and a porridge toast, heats run through the morning, and the eventual winners are marched roughly 30 metres down the main street accompanied by bagpipes and drums. One competitor described it as “the closest I’m ever going to get to feeling like an Olympian,” which, for a bowl of oats, is a pretty big call.

Don’t Stir It the Wrong Way

Scotland takes its porridge folklore just as seriously as its porridge rules. Tradition says it should be stirred clockwise with the right hand for good luck, because stirring anticlockwise is said to let the devil in. It is traditionally eaten standing up, out of respect, and always with a wooden spurtle rather than a metal spoon, to keep the lumps out. Whether or not any of it actually improves the porridge is beside the point.

Enter the Aussie: Caroline Velik’s Winning Jaffle

In 2025, at the 32nd championship, the overall Golden Spurtle title went to Sven Seljom of Norway, who used Norwegian black oats to take the traditional crown. But the story that made headlines back home was the Speciality winner: Caroline Velik, a 32-year-old food stylist from Melbourne.

Caroline’s original plan involved bread, which the rules promptly ruled out. So she improvised on the spot, building a yoghurt flatbread instead and turning it into what she called a “Porridge Jaffle”: stuffed with oats, Bundaberg Rum and banana in a nod to her mum’s old recipe, spiked with wattleseed and Davidson plum, and finished by tossing the whole thing in caster sugar like a doughnut. It won her the Speciality title outright, and second place in the traditional Golden Spurtle category as well, which is a genuinely wild double.

What’s Coming in 2026

The championship returns to the Carrbridge Village Hall on Saturday, 3 October 2026, a week ahead of World Porridge Day itself. The schedule kicks off at 9:45am with the pipe band parade and porridge toast, heats begin at 10:30am, the Grand Cook-Off Final runs from 3:30pm, and prizes are handed out at 4:30pm.

For the first time, the 2026 event has guaranteed entry spots for the national champions of Norway, the Netherlands and Australia, which means Caroline’s win last year has genuinely opened a door for the next Aussie porridge champion. We will be watching this one closely.

A Few More Wonderfully Useless Porridge Facts

• Oats were first mentioned in writing around 1 AD, and were already being grown and eaten in Italy by around 100 AD.
• The word “porridge” wasn’t actually used before the 1600s, even though people had been cooking grains in milk or water for centuries before that.
• Scottish immigrants are credited with bringing oats to America in 1602.
• The largest bowl of porridge ever made weighed 1,812 kilograms, achieved by Melvit S.A. in Miedzyzdroje, Poland, in 2018. That’s roughly the weight of a small car, in oats.
• Porridge was considered food for the poor right up until the 1700s. These days it has its own documentary film.

How We’re Celebrating at GF Oats

We don’t need much of an excuse to talk about oats, but a world championship, a devil-related superstition and an Australian jaffle upset is a very good one. Our oats are grown with care by our own farmers, Kim, and Rob and Anne, out at Wandering in Western Australia, and every bowl carries a bit of that clean, green, farm-to-plate story with it.

So on 10 October, however you take yours, whether that’s Caroline-style with a splash of rum and banana or dead traditional with just water and salt, we’d love to see it. Snap a photo, tag us, and stir clockwise. Just in case.

Frequently Asked Questions

When is World Porridge Day 2026? World Porridge Day falls on Saturday, 10 October 2026. It’s held annually on 10 October.

What is the World Porridge Making Championship? It’s an annual competition held in Carrbridge, Scotland, that has run since 1994. Competitors are judged in two categories: Golden Spurtle (traditional porridge, oatmeal-water-salt only) and Speciality (creative, anything goes).

Who won the World Porridge Making Championship in 2025? Sven Seljom of Norway won the overall Golden Spurtle title. Caroline Velik, a food stylist from Melbourne, won the Speciality category with her “Porridge Jaffle” and placed second in the traditional category.

When is the 2026 championship? The 2026 World Porridge Making Championship is on Saturday, 3 October 2026, in Carrbridge, Scotland, a week before World Porridge Day.

Is oatmeal the same as porridge? Yes, in most of the world “porridge” and “oatmeal” describe the same warm, cooked-oats dish. “Porridge” is the more common term in the UK, Australia and much of Europe, while “oatmeal” is more commonly used in North America.

Can Pure GF Oats be used to make porridge? Absolutely. Pure, uncontaminated oats cooked up into porridge exactly the same way as regular oats, so those with gluten sensitivity can join in on World Porridge Day too.