💌 Love Philly? So do we. Let’s be friends. Sign up for the Billy Penn newsletter today.
Last Wednesday, New York-based graphic designer Helen Reynolds took a train down to Philadelphia, checked into a hotel room and called out of work Thursday.
A Pittsburgh native and Carnegie Mellon University design school graduate, Reynolds rarely visits Philadelphia but made the trip down for the second year in a row. She was determined to take first place in 2026’s Scrapple Sculpting Contest.
Hosted by Reading Terminal Market, the competition pitted 12 contestants against each other for the grand prize: a $100 Reading Terminal Market gift card, a shiny trophy of the market’s mascot, Philbert the Pig, and bragging rights, of course. 2026 was the contest’s third year as part of the annual Scrapple and Apple Festival, being held Saturday.
Scrapple is a traditional Pennsylvania Dutch breakfast food made from pork scraps and trimmings, including organ meat, mixed with cornmeal or buckwheat flour and spices. The mixture is cooked into a loaf, sliced and pan-fried until crispy on the outside. Its roots trace back to German settlers who brought similar recipes to southeastern Pennsylvania in the 17th and 18th centuries. The dish was a practical way to use nearly every part of a butchered pig, and it eventually became a regional staple around Philadelphia and the mid-Atlantic.
Each competitor was given 90 minutes and a 6-pound hunk of Philly’s favorite mystery meat with tools to help them sculpt, carve and whittle away. Barnes Foundation Curator Connie Choi and Reading Terminal Market CEO and General Manager Annie Allman judged the scrapple sculptures.
“Sculpture is one of those mediums where you have to be able to envision the work before you start the process of subtracting from the medium itself,” said Choi. “So the fact that these artists are all able to create a work using a block of scrapple is already really impressive.”
This year was the first time the competition had a theme: “Reading Terminal Market.” Last year a sculpture of the Eagles’ “tush push” play took first place.
The theme produced sculptures of a pig tower, the Reading Terminal Market and LOVE Park sign and a Ben Franklin bust.
Reynolds turned her block of scrapple into a Reading Terminal Market LeBron James jersey, with a basketball to pair. Last year Reynolds won the fan vote for her sculpture of Gritty, the Philadelphia Flyers mascot.
“When I moved to New York from Pittsburgh, my trophy that I won last year was the only piece of decor I brought with me to my new apartment,” said Reynolds. “I have it on my desk right now and would love to add another.”
Among the Reading Terminal Market crowd watching Reynolds compete was a group of Reynold’s family, some of whom had made the six-hour drive from Pittsburgh the night before. Reynolds’ mother, Eve, said she bought scrapple last year for her daughter to use for practice.
“Since age 3 she loved arts, and we were in the foreign service family, so she was influenced by a lot of different arts talents in the world because neither my husband nor I had any talent in arts,” said Eve, laughing. “But this is interesting because as an artist she never was interested in 3D before but she joined this and she really loved it.”
Unfortunately for the Reynolds family, another competitor took home first place, but they’ll have another chance to take home hardware through fan voting at the Scrapple and Apple fest Saturday where the sculptures will all be on display.
Grabbing gold was Tony Lee, a Philly native and animator with experience in ice and clay sculpting. Lee sculpted an almost surprisingly realistic Philbert to earn first place.
“It was pretty meditative, actually,” said Lee. “I just put in my headphones and started sculpting.”
While contestants set a high bar for playing with your food, event emcee London Faust saw it as a tribute to scrapple.
“We chose scrapple for this competition because it is something that is near and dear to many Philadelphians,” Faust said. “It’s a very familiar breakfast item to locals, and we wanted to give it a chance to shine and see how people could get creative and use this medium for a little bit of fun art.”
Individuals can vote for their favorite sculpture at the Scrapple and Apple contest at Reading Terminal Market on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
