One of this years MasterChef Australia: Back To Win contestants has said the new judging panel is what the cooking show desperately needed after a decade.

Gary Mehigan, George Calombaris and Matt Preston fronted the series from 2009 to 2019, and it eventually became more about the trio and less about the food, according to Chris Badenoch .

I think the show desperately needed new judges. I thought the show became about the old guys and less about the contestants and less about the food as years went on, Chris told HuffPost Australia.

They almost became caricatures of themselves.