Kobayashi Eats 13 Grilled Cheeses in One Minute at SXSW

                                                                              (Image Credit: Joanna Stern / ABC News)

AUSTIN, Texas - Thirteen grilled cheeses in one minute. That's 26 pieces of bread and 13 slices of American cheese in sixty seconds.

Yes, that's the new world record for grilled cheeses eaten in one minute, set today by Takeru Kobayashi here in Austin at South by Southwest Interactive (SXSW).

In an event held at the GroupMe Grill at the technology and interactive festival, the well-known competitive eater shoved each sandwich down his throat by dunking them first in water. Recordsetter.com presided over the event; the website tracks world records.

The number of grilled cheeses in one minute is a new category established today. Joey "Jaws" Chestnut  previously ate 49 grilled cheese sandwiches in 10 minutes. Kobayashi competed against four amateur food eaters today, beating Managing Director of TechStars David Tisch, who ate four sandwiches in a minute.

The Japanese competitive eater, 33, is most well known for his participation in the Nathan's Hot Dog eating content, where he held the record for six consecutive years. He ate 53.5 hot dogs in 10 minutes in 2006. Chestnut has since taken over the record; he downed 62 hot dogs and buns in 2011.

Kobayashi, who has been listed at about 130 pounds, said his experience at SXSW has been mostly about eating food, but he is excited about the technology here, too. "I am not very tech savvy, but recently I have gotten on a lot of things, like Twitter and Facebook to stay in touch with fans," he told ABC News at the event.

GroupMe has been serving grilled cheeses with its logo burnt into the bread here at the technology and interactive festival for the past three days. In addition to serving branded, free grilled cheese to festival goers in Austin, GroupMe provides a group text messaging service and application. Naturally, Kobayashi is now also a GroupMe user.

RecordSetter urged viewers to try and beat Kobayashi's record by trying the grilled cheese eating contest at home and uploading video to its website.