world's longest kebab

Residents of a small Japanese island cooked up a late-night snack that could satisfy even the heartiest appetite -- a kebab more than 100 metres (330 feet) long.

Thousands of people on southern Ishigaki island tucked into the 107.6 metre monster, the world's longest, in an event to promote the premium Ishigaki beef, local tourism agency official Shuntaro Kosasa said.

Organisers had originally planned to make a beef kebab only 25 metres long, believing the world record was just 8.74 metres and set in Texas.

"Just three days before the event, we were informed that people in Lebanon actually set a new record of 97.5 metres in August," Kosasa said.

"We had to hurriedly prepare for four times more beef and cooking utensils and a skewer to make a kebab longer than 100 metres," he said.

The stainless steel skewer had to be repaired twice before the world's longest kebab was successfully cooked and certified by an official from Guinness World Records, he said.

Some 15,000 people -- around a third of the island's population -- later tucked into the kebab, he added.