Gourmand Awards
FOOD CULTURE
32th Gourmand Awards 2026
Nominees for the
32nd GOURMAND AWARDS
FOOD CULTURE - SPRING CHAMPIONS
We already have 598 nominees from 152 countries and international organizations, for the 32nd Food Gourmand Awards.
This is the Spring list of the first 6 months since October 15, 2025.
The quality keeps rising, it is really wonderful and heart-warming. We recommend checking these 3 outstanding nominees:
A02 Hall of Fame free
Portugal – Gastronomy Law vol.1, Carlos Torres (ESHTE – CITUR – Inatel Fundação) 760 pages
Best WINTER book of 2026
USA - Dorie’s Anytime Cakes, Dorie Greenspan (Satrah Kwak)
Best SPRING book of 2026
China – Chinese Flower Banquet, Yang Aijun and Ding Jianming, Foreword Xu Long (Yunnan People’s Publishing House) ISBN 9787222220676
Best WINTER free publication
Kyrgyzstan – Pursuing Quality and Bringing Kyrgyz Brands to the World, Haragushi Akihisa (Japan International Cooperation Agency)
The next list will be the Summer list of nominees, to be published on July 15, 2026. The Spring nominees will remain on the Summer list in the same categories. We are planning the shortlist for October 20, 2026, we expect the Awards ceremony to be at the end of November, similar to 2025.
Congratulations to all nominees! THEY ARE ALL WINNERS.
Edouard Cointreau
Founder and President
Gourmand Awards
www.cookbookfair.com
Download PDF
Shortlist for the
31st GOURMAND AWARDS
FOOD CULTURE
Shortlist October 2025 FOR BOOKS PUBLISHED 16/10/2024-15/10/2025
This is the selection for the first nine months of the 31st Gourmand Awards. On the shortlist there are only a maximum of 6 countries as finalists per category. We have 848 participants from 180 countries and from 15 international Organizations such as the UN, UNESCO, UNHCR, UNICEF, UNWTO, EU, FAO, IOM, ILO, IMF, OECD, UNDP, WFP, WHO, WIPO, World Bank, WTO. The shortlist is published after October 15, 2025, the deadline. The Awards Ceremony will be November 27-30, 2025, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
GOURMAND AWARDS
The Best Cookbooks in the World
The Gourmand Awards have changed the notion of gastronomy, its history, and its importance. With your efforts and dedication, you have changed the horizon of gastronomy.
Sara Beatriz Guardia, UNESCO Chair, USMP University, Lima, Peru November 29, 2022
Monsieur Edouard Cointreau,
You gave a lot of joy and happiness, You made famous and internationally known, tens of thousands of writers, chefs editors and publishers. You united the whole world, continents, réligions and faiths, languages, customs and traditions. We are united here with the same mission, The goal of our work is to bring to the world a well-being, respect to each other and peace. Thanks to you Monsieur Cointreau, the gastronomy books maintain their position and importance on the shelves of libraries and bookstores as well at homes, despite the competition from the wide choice that the internet offers free.
Avec mes salutations repectueuses
Ahmed Ladarsi, Author, Finland
GOURMAND
World Cookbook Awards
- The Gourmand World Cookbook Awards were founded in 1995 by Edouard Cointreau. Every year, they honour the best food and wine books, printed or digital, as well as food television.
- In 2024, we have participants from 221 countries countries and regions participate in these prestigious awards, the only international competition of the sector. It is free, and open to all languages.
- Every year, Gourmand gives the awards in a very special location for gastronomy. The Ceremony is always an opportunity to meet every important person in the world of food and books: hundreds of publishers, authors, chefs and journalists take part in these events.
- The Gourmand Awards have been compared to the “Oscars” for film. They are inspired by the Olympic Games and their spirit.
- We reward now all food and drinks content, in print or digital, paid or free, private or public, trade publishers or self published, big or small, with an equal chance for everyone.
- The Gourmand Awards are a unique opportunity to build the image of the food culture in a country, show the world its spirit.
The Gourmand Awards are the major Food Culture event in the world.
They started in 1995 for cookbooks and wine books, at Frankfurt Book Fair. They now include all Food Culture content. The Gourmand Awards are open to all, big or small, print or digital, for sale or for free, with or without ISBN, trade or self published, private or public, in any language. It is free to participate, anyone can send entries. There is no comparable international cultural event in the world, except the Olympics. We are inspired by the Olympic spirit.
1- The countries
This year we had entries from 215 countries and regions. There are 193 countries in the United Nations. For the Finalists, we have considerably reduced from the entries the number of countries, and entries. There are now Finalists for Food from a total of 134 countries (116 UN members) and regions. There are 40 countries and regions for Drinks.
2- Categories
There are 100 categories for Food, 30 for Drinks. This is necessary to reflect the wide diversity of world food culture. It gives a chance to many countries to win in a category. In the Olympic games, they have 303 competitions/categories for 202 countries. On our list our finalists, we have 130 categories for 134 countries and regions. In total, there are 1372 entries now finalist, 1144 for food, and 228 for drinks. This represents less than 3% of the total of similar books and other formats published and available every year. It is a major achievement to be on this list of Finalists. There are 67% of the categories with 12 or less finalists, 26% with 13 to 19 finalists, and 7% with 20 to 30 finalists.
3- Trends
Food Culture is now taken very seriously by most governments and individuals. Food is at the heart of the issues of our future, collectively and individually.Trends in Food and Drinks culture are now global, everywhere in the world, which this list of finalists makes very clear. We see six major trends, combining or competing at a different pace in different countries, with change accelerating:
- Tourism is becoming the force driving food culture. Food is the first positive criteria and motivation generally, for 35%, up from 25% fifteen years ago. We have 160 entries for tourism (12%). See our categories B15, B17, B21, W1-8, W1-12.
- Social media and television continue to expand the food culture market, helping print. See our categories A07, A08, A09, A13, B18, B19.
- Health and Nutrition have joined with Ethics and Environmental concerns, spreading the same issues worldwide. For instance Vegan has become mainstream in very few years, everywhere. See our categories D01, D02, D08, D09, E06, E13.
- Local has become the key word. There is a major effort everywhere to save local food culture, and transmit it. It is helped by tourism and the locavore trends. Slow Food has won. See our categories C01, D05, D07.
- Quick and easy comfort food is still very important, especially in Asia. See our category E01. In 1995, when we started, this was the leading category.
- Children and Family food books are rapidly expanding. See categories D03, D11.
- There are minor new trends starting now Sports and Food, see D13.
- Seniors and food, see D12 Breakfast, see E15.
- Embassies and Gastro Diplomacy, see F08.
4- Digital
We have 19 categories (15%) exclusively for digital, with 195 digital entries now finalists (15%). You can find in the list of Finalists approximately 50 free Food and Wine PDF to download, selected for their quality, nearly all produced by public institutions. Unfortunately, they tend to disappear quickly, so do not be surprised if you cannot find them. We cannot help. See categories A06 for FAO, UN-IOM, UNDEP-Canada, UNESCO, UNWTO or B17, W1-12. For cookbook professional online newsletters, see B03.
5- The next step
The Best in the World will be announced in Yantai, China at the Gourmand Awards annual event May 25-28, 2018. The top 3 in each category will have the right to Best in the World. We do not announce results before the event. It is not necessary to attend to win. Apart from the honors at the event, the major opportunity is meeting the other participants, for business and pleasure. As previous participants have written, it may be the best four days of your life if you participate. Guests from over 60 countries had already indicated they wanted to come as of January 12, 2018. There are among them 81 guests who have already been at our events in Yantai. They come back even if they have no entry in the competition, it is so important for networking, business, and food culture.