Former MasterChef judges, Gary Mehigan, Matt Preston announce new cooking show

#NEWSWATCH: Former MasterChef Australia judges, Gary Mehigan and Matt Preston, have announced their new Channel 7 cooking show, Plate of Origin, without fellow judge George Calombaris.

24 Oct 2019

Plate of Origin will star Mehigan and Preston as well as My Kitchen Rules judge Manu Feildel. But Calombaris is noticeably absent from the lineup.

View this post on Instagram

Food superstars Matt Preston (@mattscravat) and @GaryMehigan join Manu Feildel for Plate of Origin, where we’re not just reaching every corner of Australia… We’re going BIGGER! Which cuisine will reign supreme in this worldwide food fight? Let the flames begin.

A post shared by Channel 7 (@channel7) on Oct 23, 2019 at 12:16am PDT

Channel 7 boss, James Warburton, addressed Calombaris's absence, saying "George isn't available until July next year so it depends where we are with our formats. Never say never." As reported by https://www.dailymail.co.uk.

Online Australian magazine Now To Love reports that "the series will showcase teams of diverse cultural backgrounds who are passionate about their unique cuisine. Described as the "Olympics of cooking", the teams will face off in the kitchen as they pit their different cuisines against one another."

MasterChef Australia judges leave show amidst scandal

24 Jul 2019

In July, this year, Channel 10 announced that the contracts for Mehigan, Preston and Calombaris as the MasterChef Australia judges would not be renewed.

Their departure from the popular cooking show, after 11 years, was speculated to have come about due to controversy surrounding wage disputes at Calombaris's restaurants. Calombaris was revealed to have been underpaying his staff by A$7.83m (about R77m).

Fans of the show had lobbied for Calombaris's removal from the judging panel of the hit show, however, the broadcaster decided to not renew the contracts for all three judges.