Twelve sculptors, six pounds of scrapple apiece, and 90 minutes on the clock: Reading Terminal Market's scrapple sculpting contest returned for its third year this week, this time with a theme attached.
The judged round ran Thursday, Oct. 15, inside the Philadelphia market, with public voting for a separate "fan favorite" prize taking place during Saturday's Scrapple and Apple Festival on Oct. 17. For the first time, organizers assigned a prompt — "Reading Terminal Market" itself — pushing entrants toward market-specific subjects rather than open-ended whimsy. Sculptures included a tower built from scrapple pigs, a rendering of the market's sign alongside LOVE Park, a bust of Ben Franklin, and, from returning competitor Helen Reynolds, a Reading Terminal Market-branded LeBron James jersey complete with a scrapple basketball.
According to Billy Penn's coverage, judges Connie Choi, a curator at the Barnes Foundation, and Annie Allman, the market's CEO and general manager, awarded first place to Tony Lee, a Philadelphia native and animator, for a likeness of Philbert the Pig, the market's own mascot.
So the fact that these artists are all able to create a work using a block of scrapple is already really impressive.
Connie Choi, Barnes Foundation curator and contest judge
Lee called the sculpting process "pretty meditative, actually," while emcee London Faust explained the choice of medium more bluntly: scrapple, the regional pork scrap loaf beloved and mocked in roughly equal measure, is "near and dear to many Philadelphians."
The prize is modest by design — a $100 market gift card, a trophy shaped like Philbert, and bragging rights — which is part of the point. The contest began in 2024 with eight entrants and no theme, when cheesemonger Jake Heller won with a scrapple jar shaped like a chicken; last year's edition crowned a sculpture of the Eagles' "tush push" play, a nod to the team's Super Bowl-winning formation.
Reynolds, a New York-based graphic designer who won last year's public vote with a sculpture of Flyers mascot Gritty, did not take the judged prize this time but remains in contention for Saturday's crowd vote — a reminder that in scrapple sculpture, as in scrapple itself, taste is subjective and the scraps are what you make of them.