THE eating challenge that brought the world the steak the size of a toilet seat and the mountain of Brussels sprouts has branched out into sausages, faggots and fish-fingers.

Until September this year, the only way to join the Piggies Dinning Club was to eat a 48oz steak in one sitting.

Then the club branched out into Brussels sprouts, with a new challenge to eat 48oz of the vegetable.

This evening the club will expand with the new challenges, The Pork Sword Challenge, The Welsh Faggot Challenge, and The Jenga Tower Fish Finger Challenge - each weighing 48oz.

"Forty-eight ounces is hard but do-able," said the Worcestershire-based club's founder Jon Lewis.

"The first two-thirds is easy. It's the last third that kills you," he said.

At Thursday's initiation six people will attempt the steak, one will take on the sprouts, two will eat faggots, four the sausages and five the fish-fingers.

"We have one person who failed the steak challenge miserably but will be trying the fish-finger challenge," said Mr Lewis.

Existing members will also take on the new challenges to prove their eating prowess.

The new challenges will also set record times to be beaten when the club expands to a national or even international scale.

The current record for the steak is 10mins 32secs and the Brussels sprouts stands at 92mins.

Members place bets on who will finish first and the proceeds go to charities, which in the past have included Children in Need, St Richard's Hospice and Acorns Children's Hospice Trust.

The proceeds from Thursday's meeting will go to Worcester's Amateur Rugby Team, The Wanderers, and a number of their players will participate in the challenge.

More new challenges could be tried out next year including Jailer's Chain Black Pudding, Indian Chicken Tikka, Scottish Hell of a Haggis, and Cheeseboard.

The challenge will take place at the Bird in the Hand, in Stoulton, near Pershore, owned by Bob Hulme, who hosted the last challenge at another of his venues, The Swan in Whittington.