Reigning Krystal Square-Off champion Joey “Jaws” Chestnut has an appetite for a win going into the fifth annual Krystal Square-Off World Hamburger Eating Championship.

But he’s also just plain hungry.

“That’s the last food I’m going to eat until the contest,” Mr. Chestnut said Friday afternoon after downing a tiny Krystal burger during a publicity event at Ross’ Landing, where the competition will start around 2:45 p.m. Sunday.

He was promoting the televised competition that made him famous last year, when he took the title by eating 103 burgers in eight minutes. He’s hoping to shatter that record by downing 110 this year, he said.

So Mr. Chestnut, of San Jose, Calif., is doing everything he can to prepare for the stiff competition he knows he’ll be facing. World-famous eater Takeru Kobayashi, of Tokyo, Japan, was out of the running last year because of a jaw injury, but this year he’s back to try to recapture his old title.

To up the ante, Mr. Kobayashi, who has fallen to No. 3 in the world of eating a lot in a short period of time, is bringing a new strategy this year.

“Everything that I do will be new, an absolutely new approach,” he said Friday through a Japanese translator. “I won’t chew as much as I have been.”

But he’ll have to watch out for fresh-faced maverick Pat “Deep Dish” Bertoletti of Chicago, who has taken the competitive eating world by storm during Mr. Kobayashi’s convalescence. Mr. Bertoletti will bring his own brand of Krystal consumption to the table Sunday to defend his No. 2 ranking.

“I just like to fold them and then just dunk them in a patented brand of liquid,” he said. “I’m not going to tell you what it is, but it’s messy and it stains my hands.”

George Shea, and emcee of Sunday’s event and president of Major League Eating, an organization dedicated to the world of competitive consumption, says those three athletes alone will make the contest “a battle of the titans.” But it will be even more exciting than ever this year, he said, because for the first time, a “12th Eater” drawn from the audience will get to compete alongside 11 world champions for a cash prize.

Anyone 18 or older with a valid ID is allowed to sign up for the chance to compete, said Brad Wahler, Krystal vice president of marketing. Mr. Wahler anticipates a lot of good contenders because eating competitions have been going on informally since the company was born 76 years ago.

“This is something Krystal customers have been doing in our stores every Friday and Saturday night anyway,” he said.

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