Hard core! Apple peeling champion slices through competition to produce nearly four-metre strip of skin

Apple peeling competition winner Kerrie Stratford at the Stanthorpe apple and grape festival. Photograph: Leeroy Todd

Outside a marquee, across from the clock tower, a crowd is gathering for the Stanthorpe apple and grape harvest festival’s apple peeling contest. Well, contest might be an exaggeration.

Kerrie Stratford, 65, is the undisputed champion of apple peeling. There is no competition. She has won 21 titles at the Queensland town’s biannual festival, claiming a shelf full of trophies including one tasteful prize that is a rock with a peeler on top of it.