Bathurst and Wagga's Chiko fight just got bigger ... much bigger

Wagga has long claimed, despite Bathurst's protestations, to be the home of the iconic fast-food roll and now the Riverina city's pop artist Chris Roe has gone one step further.

Mr Roe is claiming he's made the largest Chiko Roll on earth.

"I've written to Simplot - the company that makes the Chiko Roll - and I've let them know," he said.

"I've also done a bit of research and the only comparable-sized Chiko that I could find was on the roof of a Variety Club car in the Bathurst Motor Museum which is about five foot long, whereas this one is more like six foot."

The Variety Club car Chiko Roll that Mr Roe is referencing would be Bathurst's long-running entry in the Variety Bash charity fundraiser, piloted by the Lindsell family.

That car - a 1964 Wolseley 2480 with an oversized Chiko Roll on its roof - took part in its 30^th Variety Bash back in 2018, having been to all sorts of inhospitable corners of the continent.

The Chiko Roll's true home has long been a source of argument because the food was created by Bendigo man Frank McEnroe, debuted at the Wagga Agricultural Show in 1951 and is produced at Bathurst's Simplot factory.

In 2021, federal Member for Calare Andrew Gee, who was then still with the Nationals, even used federal parliament to take a cheeky swing at the deputy prime minister and Member for Riverina Michael McCormack on the issue.

"As the acting prime minister [Mr McCormack] knows, Bathurst is the home of the Chiko Roll," Mr Gee said during a speech about a trade agreement with the UK.

Wagga's Mr Roe said the journey to create the epic Chiko all began after he read an article by acclaimed journalist Bruce Elder about Wagga and the roll.

"He got stuck into Wagga and said, 'Come on Wagga, you're better than this... surely there's more that you can be proud of in your town'."

Mr Roe said he reflected on this and thought it was "very Australian" and very "larrikin" that Wagga would claim "something as silly as a Chiko Roll as one of its defining [icons]".

The mega Chiko has gone on show at Mr Roe's Rogue Thoughts exhibit at the Wagga Ambo Gallery.