• Ad Age, Thursday, October 12, 2006 12 PM

A Chicago pastry chef grabbed a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records this week when he assembled a 20-foot, 8-inch tall skyscraper with a dark chocolate infrastructure and white chocolate windows in the kickoff event of the Food Network's "Guinness World Record Breakers Week." Well-known for providing chefs with competitions, the net had never attempted a world record before.

"We've had lots of successful partnerships with a series of businesses, so we thought we'd do something really cool, says Susie Fogelson, vice president-marketing at the Food Network. "We know Guinness has thousands of food records, but we wanted to do one that would look interesting on TV."

And with everyone from Bravo's "Top Chef" to Rachael Ray's daytime talk show trying to get a piece of the food TV action, the channel picked a good time to reclaim its throne at the top of food TV. Its third-quarter Nielsen ratings saw an overall growth in viewers of 8 percent and a 9 percent rise in the 18-49 demo--the age group the Guinness promotion wants to reach.

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