The 2026 World Food Photography Awards, sponsored by Tenderstem® Bimi® Broccolini, have showcased nearly 9,000 entries from over 50 countries, highlighting how food shapes daily life worldwide. From a Soviet-era sanatorium in Tajikistan to a floating market in Bangladesh, the winning images immortalise harvests, markets, family kitchens, street food, celebrations and survival.
British photographer Jo Kearney won the top prize for a solitary shot in the canteen of Khoja Obi Garm, a Soviet-era sanatorium in Tajikistan. The image evokes memory and place, capturing guests enjoying simple, hearty meals between treatments at the radon-rich hot springs. The vast concrete 'health hotel' once offered workers annual rest and now attracts local Tajiks, Central Asian visitors and backpackers.
Other notable images include a hotpot festival in China where hundreds gather around a communal banquet of red broth rich with chilli and Sichuan peppercorn; squid drying in the sun in Ine, Japan, using the traditional himono technique; and fishermen hauling nets at sunrise beneath Kolkata's Howrah Bridge. In Kyoto's Nishiki Market, a fleeting moment captures the crush of shoppers and steam, while in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, a child reaches for hot non bread fresh from a family tandoor.
During Chhath Puja in West Bengal, devotees stand in water offering food to the Sun god. In Bogra, Bangladesh, farmers bring cabbages by rickshaw to an early morning market. Hungarian photographer Lehóczki Balázs realised a long-held dream by photographing his grandparents in their kitchen, with his grandmother calling him an artist upon seeing the finished image.
