Mobile applications have become big business these days with apps covering pretty much anything imaginable, with Apple leading the way with its App Store and today we can tell you that a Food & Drink category is now live.

The company had already notified developers that there would be such a category available in the App Store and now as AppleInsider are reporting Apple has launched the service with thousands of iPhone and iPad apps now available.

Earlier this month Apple begun sending out emails to relevant developers that their applications will be moved over to the new category, and it is now active. At the time of writing the category has 4,040 free iPhone apps and 2,824 paid apps, while for the iPad there are 1,039 free apps and 1,121 paid for applications available.

The category is meant to include applications that relate to cooking and baking, recipes, restaurants, bars, social food recommendation, and mixing drinks. It seems applications that cover diet, coupon clipping, food related game apps, and grocery shopping will not be counted.

Apple has been busy making minor enhancements to the App Store in the last few months, and back in May added an Editor’s Choice to the App Store. The company has also started to offer free App of the Week promotions, which followed a ‘Catalogs’ category being added in March.

The iPhone maker is seeing a huge expansion of the so called app economy, and recently revealed there were over 650,000 applications available on the App Store. So far total downloads have passed thirty billion with over $5 billion being paid out to developers. The App Store recently expanded to 32 new countries, and is now used in 155 countries in total. You can find the new Food & Drink category here.

Do you have a favourite food or drink application?