Event supervisor Nicolas Chee, 20, holding the poster showing how to use the smartphone to vote in the Love Penang Street Food Competition that will be ongoing until Nov 30. — KT GOH/The Star
PENANG, touted as a food paradise, is renowned for its fine cuisines as well as street food.
To celebrate this heritage, Penang Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow said the state government launched the Love Penang Street Food Competition in line with the Love Penang campaign.
The campaign is a community initiative created to inspire unity and goodwill among the people through various community activities.
“We hope to unite the Penang community through the Love Penang initiative.
“One of the steps to achieve the agenda is through food.
“Penang is always well known for its street food and I would like to emphasise that the heritage of street food should be protected and cherished by locals.
“Not only that, efforts to increase activities in the economy between street food operators need to be implemented,” he said during a ceremony to launch the competition at Komtar.
Chow said the competition utilised the convenience of technology to enable individuals to vote for their favourite food stalls using their smartphones.
“The Love Penang Street Food Competition will take place for two months, from Sept 20 to Nov 30.
“Street food operators in the state are welcome to participate in this competition and they can apply through LovePG.my or the LovePenang application, subject to terms and conditions.
“So far, we have gathered around 200 stalls for the competition.
“The number of participation slots is limited,” he said, adding that they were aiming for a maximum of 2,000 food stalls participating in this competition.
There are a total of 21 categories of street food that are considered as Penang’s iconic food and three other group categories.
“For example, for the category of char koay teow, nasi lemak and laksa, among others, there will be a list of options available,” said Chow.
“The public are welcome to participate by voting for their favourite booth or any booth that takes part throughout the voting period within these two months,” he said.
A QR code will be displayed at participating stalls to enable voters to scan and vote directly.
“Voters will be given reward points upon completion of voting and those points can be used to redeem rewards provided.
“Prizes worth RM200,000 are up for grabs.
“The prizes are not only limited to the hawkers, but will also be given to voters who vote according to the food category listed,” Chow elaborated.
“For the hawkers, the first-prize winner will receive RM5,000, the runner-up wins RM2,000 and the winner in third place will get RM1,000.
“As for the voters, there will be daily prizes of RM10 (ewallet) for most votes of the day; RM50 (ewallet) for most votes of the week as well as RM2,000 cash for the top voter,” he added.
Also present at the launch was the Chief Minister’s senior confidential secretary Muhamad Azrai Mohamad Zaini.
