The new record-breaking length for the bar made in its namesake was certified by both the Baking Association of Canada and the Culinary Federation of Canada. Photo: Lauryn Mackenzie / CHLY 101.7fm

It’s official, Nanaimo now holds the record for the world’s largest Nanaimo bar.

Over the weekend, the scent of butter, custard, chocolate and of course, coconut hung in the air at the Nanaimo campus of Vancouver Island University, as students in the culinary arts and professional baking and pastry Arts program unveiled a record-breaking, 70-foot-long Nanaimo bar.

Weber said the Nanaimo bar is an iconic dessert in Nanaimo and across the country. Photo: Lauryn Mackenzie / CHLY 101.7fm

On Saturday, May 17, thousands of people squeezed into the Windsor Plywood Trades Discovery Centre to get a look and a taste of the Nanaimo bar that stretched about the same length as the centre.

Before the event, CHLY spoke with Aron Weber, chairperson of VIU's professional baking and pastry arts program, while students were baking the massive bar.

He said the idea to build the world's largest Nanaimo bar has been in the works for several years now.

Students started working on the bar four days before the official event. Photo: Lauryn Mackenzie / CHLY 101.7fm

“So it was actually a project that was sort of dreamed up by some students who were in our baking diploma program, the inaugural year. We were looking at ideas to promote a business or school, or something for an opening, and we decided to look up world records,” Weber said. “Being in Nanaimo, we decided to check [out records for Nanaimo bars]. We were a little shocked that the record doesn't lie in Nanaimo, and quite honestly, if the record was in Nanaimo, I don't think we'd be pursuing this.”

Weber said the Nanaimo bar is an iconic dessert in Nanaimo and across the country.

“If you ask people what Canadian food is, or even desserts, there aren't things that resonate with Canadian cuisine,” he said. “The Nanaimo bar is something that we can claim as our own, and I think it's pretty cool that it's actually from, you know, a small community like this.”

He said the students started creating the bar four days before the official event, and that creating the Nanaimo bar is a great project for the students.

Nani the Nanaimo bar posed for photos beside the much larger bar. Photo: Lauryn Mackenzie / CHLY 101.7fm

“These are the kind of memorable things that throughout your career you look back on. You might not remember that day when you're making croissants or bread in the kitchen, but you'll remember that day when you're making all those Nanaimo bars and serving them,” he said. “One of the fantastic things about being a chef or a baker is we have these opportunities to create amazing things that can be a community even, like that we're doing on Saturday.”

The event was also a fundraiser for the culinary programs to purchase new ovens.

“Our ovens are fantastic, they're just well-loved, and they are getting sort of towards the end of life. Quite often, this seems to be the case in kitchens, when one thing starts going, they all start going.” he said. “So we are in need of [a new] main bread oven down here in the baking program, but we also need an oven upstairs for the pastry kitchen as well. So our hope is to replace those two main ovens with this project.”

To acknowledge the day, Nanaimo Mayor Leonard Krog spoke to the hungry crowd and proclaimed May 17 as Nanaimo Bar Day. Photo: Lauryn Mackenzie / CHLY 101.7fm

On Saturday, Weber told CHLY that the experience of bringing the jumbo bar together has been amazing.

“What a great team effort. I was very confident in the team that we could pull this off. But now that it's on the table and we've seen it come to life, just so proud of everybody involved. So it's been a great process and so much fun to do,” he said at the event.

For some stats: the Nanaimo bar ended up being 70 feet long, 32 inches wide (21 meters long, 81 centimetres wide), 1,200 pounds (544 kilograms), and 2.4 million calories.

In comparison, the Nanaimo bar is about half the size of the Hullo ferry that travels from downtown Nanaimo to downtown Vancouver. The ferry clocks in at about with an overall length of 42.2m or about 138 feet.

The previous record-holding Nanaimo bar was only eight feet long, 44 inches wide, and 530 pounds, which was made in 2020 in Levack, Ontario.

It is fair to say, it was a delicious, record-breaking moment. Photo: Lauryn Mackenzie / CHLY 101.7fm

The new record-breaking length for the bar made in its namesake was certified by both the Baking Association of Canada and the Culinary Federation of Canada, which represents the VIU trades students.

To acknowledge the day, Nanaimo Mayor Leonard Krog spoke to the hungry crowd and proclaimed May 17 as Nanaimo Bar Day.

“Friends, we are really lucky to live in this amazing community where we have this kind of enthusiasm, and I can only say it's only right and proper that we host the creation of the biggest Nanaimo bar in the history of the planet,” the mayor told the crowd. “It is not the Victoria bar, it is not the Saskatoon bar, it is not the Ottawa bar, it is the Nanaimo bar.”

Once the bar was cut into almost 4,000 pieces, lines stretched around the Discovery centre as people waited to get a bite out of a record-breaking moment.

And once people got to try the dessert, it was fair to say, it was a delicious, record-breaking moment.

While event goers were encouraged to grab a second piece in exchange for a donation to the culinary program, any Nanaimo bars that were left over were packaged up, frozen, and donated to the Salvation Army in Nanaimo

Funding Note: This story was produced with funding support from the Local Journalism Initiative, administered by the Community Radio Fund of Canada.