Food SA: Think Food – From The Idea To Here, by Bridget McNulty
In a shed, on 50 fertile acres of land in Loxton North, South Australia, Anne Battam lovingly produces an extensive range of tasty fruit products. Her company, AUSNAT Fruits, first came to fruition in 1994. At that time, the value of oranges had decreased, so her friend Mandy had a brilliant idea to use the oranges grown on her property in a more adventurous way. It turned what seemed a lost cause into something more profitable and productive.
“We had no assistance from the government at the time and all profits were put back into the business,” says Anne. “Up until about five years ago, we had dollar-for-dollar grant from the government when we attended trade expos, but now nothing.”
Anne grew up on a fruit property. “Mum used to preserve fruit and it felt natural to carry on the tradition.” Today, Anne and her team of four dedicated employees create 32 delectable, handmade fruit products for the local market. “All fruits used in production are locally sourced,” Anne says. The brandied apricots and chocolate oranges are the company’s best sellers, and having tasted both I can see why. All fruits are dried, with no chemicals added.
Anne remains focused on local markets and has embraced the use of online shopping, which is a growing area of her business. “If someone wants to purchase our products this way, great,” she says, but wants her company to remain manageable and is not keen on expanding into export markets.
The focus is to maintain control of all aspects of the business. Anne is extremely passionate and parochial about the products she produces, and hopes that when the day comes to hand over the reins to someone else, they will put as much passion and love into the business as she has. “We are proudly South Australian,” she states.
Should you take business advice from a chef? Definitely, according to four successful chefs who shared their insight into culinary business operations at Tasting Australia's Stirring the Pot industry forum on Monday. Food critic John Lethlean lead this discussion which also embraced training staff, marketing and business.
“Small business is tougher than ever,” says Jeremy Strode from Bistro CBD, Sydney. Industry relations have changed over the years. Wages, rent and food costs are major factors of running a profitable business that need at least a 100 seats to be able to cover costs. “If you are going into business, you need to be able to do accounting,” adds Adrian Richardson from La Luna, Melbourne. “It helps to be vigilant and check everything. You need to know when your restaurant is going to break even during the week or know when.”
Briefing staff before service, or at least each week, is important, so they have the knowledge of what is on the menu and drinks list, and understand the company’s direction. Using words such as “grass-fed, free-range, product names”, Adrian says he gives customers the best information to make an informed choice. “Listening to the customer and staff feedback is a good way to improve menus,” explains Matthew Kemp from Restaurant Balzac, Sydney.
“We use what is cheap, which usually is what is in season,” Jeremy explains about his fruit and vegetable costs. Matthew goes to the markets, to find the best prices on food for his restaurant.
All the panel agree that understanding mark-up needs to be applied to food and drinks so the business can make cost. “Advertise to the people who love us,” says Matthew, showing his “warmth” by rewarding regular patrons of his restaurant by informing them of upcoming events. Camillo Crugnale from Assaggio Ristorante in Adelaide treats his clientele as if they are his best friends, while Adrian keeps a presence on Facebook and Twitter.
A Hard Act to Follow, by Suzanne Le Page
Ian Parmenter’s swansong has been a magnificent success. As Festival Director, he hosted the eighth biennial Tasting Australia, and presumably with divine intervention organised perfect weather for public feasting, drinking, presentations and lectures on the banks of the River Torrens, attended by an estimated 40,000 people over the two days. Interstate and overseas visitors will assume that this perfect weather, mainly cloudless blue skies, mild breeze and perfect temperatures are typical of Adelaide.
The river was especially attractive, with tame swans wandering the paths, and multicoloured paddle boats available for hire. Dragon boats and a gondola added a touch of international interest, and Popeye boats, a well-known Adelaide icon, drifted silently by.
The banks of the Torrens were crowded with people strolling, catching up with friends or sitting under umbrellas and sunshades, sampling the produce from many and varied food and wine stalls erected behind the public areas.
Two marquees accommodated large numbers attending debates, cooking classes and lectures by many famous chefs and food writers.
Ian Parmenter’s contract to direct this function expires this year, and there is already speculation about his successor. Well-known Adelaide identity and chef Simon Bryant has been mooted as a contender.
Announcement of the successful candidate will be eagerly awaited, but Ian Parmenter can certainly depart knowing that it will be exceedingly difficult to improve on this year’s Tasting Australia.Changing Tastes: Andrew Fielke, by Brett Tizard
The importance of communicating with customers was a feature of Tasting Australia's Word of Mouth series and was highlighted by Stirring the Pot panellists. Native produce advocate and chef Andrew Fielke has been communicating with his customers for more than 25 years about the importance of native produce and the fantastic flavours to be found in the Australian bush.
Starting with Bush Tucker Supply in 1987 and moving on to the Red Ochre restaurants based in Adelaide, Cairns and Alice Springs in the 1990s, Andrew is now promoting his Tuckeroo range of spices, sauces and other produce. He is taking opportunities to share the secrets of these great flavours at events such as Feast of the Senses and FoodSA's ThinkFood expo, and next week will be in Darwin for an Australian native produce master class and a public food expo.
Fielke is a key player in Australian Native Produce Industry Ltd promoting the diversity of native produce in this rapidly growing industry. He has been working with regional and remote communities across the country over many years to develop reliable supply chains for these great Australian tastes.
Dark roasted wattle seed with chocolate and coffee overtones, the floral citrus flavours of lemon myrtle and Tasmania's pepper berry and pepper leaf are part of the selection that can now be purchased online. Desserts don't miss out, with strawberry gum and peppermint gum leaves adding special flavours boost to vanilla and chocolate dishes.
Fielke is part of an industry that is beginning to blossom with online stores, a major retail chain interested in taking on his antipasto range, and big rural producers looking to move into native produce.
Truly Australian tastes are coming to supermarkets and restaurants near you.
Dollars and Chefs, by Susan Lang-Lemckert
Fawlty Towers has a lot to answer for. Petulant chefs of the madman/genius kind who never left their kitchens – if they ever existed – have no place in today’s restaurants, as the guest panellists at Tasting Australia’s Stirring the Pot forum showed.
With the Australian food and dining market more discerning and competitive than ever, today’s chef/restaurateurs need good business-savvy as much as they need good Cab Savvy.
“I’ll float between front of house and back of house all the time,” says Adrian Richardson, star of Good Chef Bad Chef and proprietor of Melbourne’s popular La Luna restaurant. “That way you get to see what’s going on, the staff know you can see what’s going on, and the punters love it. You have to be hands-on if you’re running a restaurant.”
No arguments about that from Matt Kemp of The Montpellier Public House in Randwick, Sydney, who even visits the markets three times a week to source produce for his menus. “We all want to use what’s in season, but how can you know what’s in season if you don’t go to the markets?” he asks.
Tweaking menus is important, as is effective marketing. “I employed a marketing specialist for a year to help me develop strategies to keep our clients coming back,” says Matt. “And now I have a young person doing the Twitter. That’s much better value than paying for a newspaper advertisement that can be hidden by a reader’s thumbs.”
And a working knowledge of accounting is essential. “You need to check and sign off on everything,” says Adrian. “I can tell exactly when we’re going to break even by looking at the bookings on Wednesday. When other people are spending your money, you really need to be across where it’s going.”
So today’s chef wears a few more hats than yesterday’s ... but they all fit comfortably. Basil Fawlty would be proud.
Stirring the Pot, by Tania Paola
Stirring the Pot: Lessons Learnt, by Kate Yates
English-born chef Jeremy Strode has been working in kitchens since he started washing pots at the age of 14. Following an apprenticeship in five-star hotels in London, he’s been fortunate enough to work alongside chefs Michel Roux, Roger Verge and Pierre Koffmann, before moving to Melbourne in the early 1990s. With these strong mentors and his own strong reputation for excellence in cooking, you’d think he would know what makes for a successful restaurant venture – but it took many mistakes to get there.
Jeremy spoke as a panellist as one of four chefs in frank discussion about the realities and pitfalls of the restaurant as a small business, at the Stirring the Pot forum – a catering industry event.
I found it interesting to learn that despite a remarkable career, awards and success with Langton’s, Bistrode and his latest venture with the Merivale Group, The Fish Shop in Potts Point, Jeremy is still learning. He is humble enough to admit that the public and industry recognition has been for his restaurants and cooking, not for his business sense.
Through Bistrode, a simple, rustic bistro in Bourke Street, Surry Hills, admits he’s learned the hard way. Living above the restaurant, housed in a century-old butcher’s shop, to attempt a balance of home and work life, the early years of the bistro were easy. Over the course of time, Surry Hills became a thriving dining precinct, but now has too many food businesses, all competing for diners. This has led to increased costs, rising rent, changes in wage and running costs.
Despite running a successful operation, he forgot a simple rule of looking after the locals (“your bread and butter”). He says if you “give them love” they reward you with return visits. He knows he is a good cook but recognises his cooking skills don’t translate into being a good business manager.
Four years ago he took up an opportunity to join forces with the Merivale Group (led by Sydney dynamo Justin Hemmes). This allowed him to concentrate on cooking by taking the burden out of management and achieving a better work life balance.
All the chefs shared their experience of key aspects of business success, such as -keeping costs down by shopping at markets (and knowing the suppliers, what is in season, flavoursome and cheaper), costing out all dishes, keeping a reign on cash flow, understanding how many covers are needed to break even and make a profit. They also discussed the importance of working on the floor and in the kitchen, learning the secrets of marketing to grow and maintain a following of clients using database management systems, social media and other methods, and listening to what the customer wants.
Anyone in the trade can learn from these lessons.
Salt is Not a Dirty Word, by Melissa Barnett
It has been taxed and vilified. It has enabled humans to explore far-away lands. It has been blamed for disease and used as cures. Salt is one of life’s essentials and without it we would quite literally die – 0.9 per cent of blood is salt, to say nothing of how dull our food would taste. Just ask any chef – especially at Tasting Australia.
Barry Beach of Beach Organics luckily ignored the salt myth-information and has been importing hand-made sea salt from South-East Asia for a number of years. His salt is collected in buckets of seawater from the Wallace Line near Indonesia, the second deepest ocean trench in the world.
He sources from this region for reasons sustainability ahead of taste alone. The seawater is then put into copper vessels and poured onto sand to bake into flakes. This process is called seeding. Once evaporated, the salt is raked and rinsed with fresh water, creating a brine which is then poured onto traditional palm wood tables to dry once again. After the second evaporation the salt is gathered, rinsed again and evaporated for a third time before it is ready for use.
Barry sources his salt from traditional Javanese salt farmers in a relationship that he describes as “helping to keep indigenous food traditions alive”.
The salt comes as a fine “fleur-de-sel” or a larger grain, which resembles a tiny pyramid of salt between your fingertips. Salt in its most unadulterated state, says Barry, contains 74 different minerals, and when tasted should leave no bitterness on the back of the tongue.
Barry adds a range of herbs, fruit and flavours to his salt including chilli, vanilla pods, whole limes, coriander seeds and peppercorns. Walking past his stand at Tasting Australia’s Feast for the Senses on Sunday smelt like a walk beside the open ocean, complete with the tang of salt-laden sea spray.
Some chefs argue about cooking the perfect fish. Some chefs argue about plating a dish. Four chef restaurant owners on this panel are passionately arguing the difference between warm marketing and cold marketing – and the perils of their business being left behind by social marketing.
“Marketing? Isn’t that where you buy your fruit and veg?” jokes Adrian Richardson, owner of La Luna in Melbourne for 14 years. Camillo Crugnale, owner of Assagio Ristorante and Assagio Cafe in Adelaide, confesses that he doesn’t tweet and Matt Kemp replies, “just find someone younger in your business to do it for you!”
Opinions quickly rise to the boil as host, respected food critic John Lethlean, admits that some chefs are “self-serving rubbish tweeters, so I switch them off”.
Humour aside, the celebrity chefs agree that being a good chef is not enough. Chefs need business skills, and owning a restaurant has been a steep learning curve.
Members and visitors at Restaurant and Catering SA’s Industry Development Day heard an exchange of thoughts and ideas, and insider knowledge of the chefs’ culture in their restaurants. They shared the wisdom of their mistakes, as well as their success.
“How to communicate with customers is all about giving them a reason to come back,” says Matt Kemp, owner of Montpellier House in Sydney. Warm marketing – email and newsletter marketing to people that are already customers – gives them an incentive to keep dining at Montpellier House, and has grown its database incredibly to more than 9500 people.
Jeremy Strode, owner for seven years of Bistrode in Sydney, admits “small business is tougher than ever because produce, wages and rent have all gone up”. Matt Kemp saves money by buying direct from growers markets, something that Adelaide restaurateur Terry Soukoulis, owner of Auge Ristorante, agrees with. “My chef and I buy direct from the growers at the Adelaide Produce Market every Sunday morning,” says Terry. “It’s amazing what you can find there.”
Food and Wine Writing Course, by Victoria Miranda
Stories surround all of us every day, but how do we identify the ones that will interest others and report on them? This is a skill many journalists develop through years of practice, but Tasting Australia's Food and Wine Writing Course offered participants a degustation of writing knowledge in its program.
Over five days, the food novices in this course are exposed to the life of a journalist with tight deadlines and pressure to produce a story that readers will want to read.
Professor Barbara Santich and David Sly, with more than 60 years’ experience between them, mentor the students with ease. Imparting tips on writing disciplines, identifying a story and the art of communication have been invaluable tools. The information generates sparks of interest amongst the students that inspire them throughout the course.
The energy of the students did not wean – not from the first day, when Tasting Australia director Ian Parmenter brought his infectious enthusiasm to the class, to the final day, when Janet Boileau, Publisher of Taste & Travel magazine, offered tips on pitching a story.
The motives of each participant varied. Some look at writing as a hobby, while others are considering journalism as a career. No matter the reason, Barbara and David devoted time to each student, encouraging them to find their own voice which would entertain and educate the reader.
SA Sustainable Seafood, by Sarah Mayoh
Sustainability seems to be a hot topic on everyone’s lips throughout Tasting Australia 2012 in Adelaide. South Australian producers are particularly interested in sustainability, specifically as it pertains to their thriving seafood industry. The old adage there are plenty of fish in the sea is becoming less relevant as the world realises that our resources, especially seafood, will not in fact last forever.
The Australian Conservation Foundation refers to sustainable seafood as that which is “sourced within the natural limits of our oceans with minimal damage to ocean life and habitats”. Wild catch, aquaculture and processing are the three main sectors of the seafood industry in South Australia, involving products ranging from rock lobsters to abalone and southern bluefin tuna.
Food SA’s Think Food trade expo on April 30 provided the opportunity to meet several South Australian seafood businesses. Aussea Seafood, which received approval for the internationally recognised Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification in sustainability last year, was one producer on show. Rick Mezic, from Aussea Seafood (a prawn co-op with 21 members), explained that their prawns are all wild caught and snap frozen on-board within hours of hitting the decks. He says this process maximises the prawns’ taste and texture, and helps minimise waste. Since receiving its MSC certification May 2011, Aussea’s export orders began flowing in from July 2011, mainly from Europe.
A key objective for the illustrious SA seafood industry is “ongoing ecological sustainability”, according to its Food Plan 2010-2015. Fishermen, processors, the government and consumers all need to play a factor in ensuring sustainable seafood practices continue to forge ahead hand-in hand with sustained quality. Education will play a huge role in consumers understanding of sustainable seafood, and hopefully make them willing to dig a little deeper into their wallets at the fishmonger.
Celebrity Chefs? by Martha French
What does the word celebrity bring to mind? Maybe arrogant, beautiful, aloof or unapproachable. Which brings me to question if celebrity is the right term to be pairing with the word chef.
I was recently privileged enough to be part of the Food and Wine Writing Course as a part of Tasting Australia, and repeatedly witnessed over five days the graciousness, accessibility and generosity of all of celebrity chefs involved in the event.
Rachel Allen, during her book signing, fussed over a couple’s baby like any mum and made the experience much more about the couple than about her. At the Miele Chefs’ Showcase, Guy Grossi tossed chunks of bread dough into the front row and shared good natured banter with the crowd, giving the impression that he was having as much fun as they were. Grossi shook my hand and thanked me, a student writer, for covering the event. Paul Mercurio stood patiently in the lengthy lunch queue along with everybody else.
Adrian Richardson cited an incident where a patron was annoyed that he was not present at the restaurant while they were dining. His comment was that the experience should be about an enjoyable night out and good food: “It shouldn’t be about me.”
What is it that keeps these chefs so down to earth? Maybe it’s because food is an essential part of all of our lives. Or maybe it’s because they all run viable businesses. The celebrity status these chefs have been assigned still seems to be very secondary to their passion for the profession. Their main concern is the people who pay to eat at their restaurants, not about their cookbook sales. It is still all about the food and pleasing the punter.
These chefs do have a celebrity-like influence on our lives, as many of us would aspire to produce lamb as tasty as George Calombaris’s or a golden apple pandowdy like Maggie Beer. However, these people demonstrate that being a celebrity does not necessarily mean having to act like one.
Stirring the Pot by Liz Nicholson
Restaurateurs are finding that they need to utilise social media to stay connected with their customers. Treating customers as friends and keeping them interested in your brand outside of the restaurant was one issue discussed at Stirring the Pot, an industry panelled event for Tasting Australia 2012. The discussion touched on using social media to help foster relationships with customers and encourage new and repeat business.
Panellist, restaurateur and chef Matthew Kemp said he uses social media to be a presence, be informative and to keep people interested in his brand, without trying to be too much about sales. Matthew finds that a Twitter account is meeting the needs of his restaurant Montpellier Public House, giving him the opportunity to give out information about current specials, mention a meal for the night and directing traffic back to the website.
Using the public interest in celebrity chefs to his advantage Matthew also has a professional Twitter account for himself, as it gives him a chance to make a more personal connection with customers and direct them back to the restaurant’s Twitter account and website. Matthew can therefore tweet when he's at the farmers market in Sydney or when he's just finished a radio interview in Adelaide, and keep connected with his customers and staff without mentioning sales directly.
Adrian Richardson is using the La Luna Bistro Facebook page to stay connected to his consumers by posting photos of dishes and events that the restaurant is participating in. Adrian was surprised by recent positive responses to the album uploaded showing the art of butchering involved in making salami. Photos such as this give Adrian the opportunity to entice prospective customers by re-connecting them with the food. Customers can see where it comes from and are ensured of its quality.
It is clear that both Adrian and Matthew think social media is an important tool for business, and Matthew’s advice to inexperienced or uninterested restaurateurs is to hire someone younger to do it.
Stirring the Pot, by Angela Malberg
The look of disappointment when customers don’t get what they expected is not what Matt Kemp, owner of The Montpellier Public House, wants to see. Kemp regularly briefs his staff about his vision for his restaurant. “This is my restaurant, my business and my reputation,” says Kemp at Stirring the Pot, presented by Restaurant and Catering South Australia. Keeping control of his business is essential for ensuring the restaurant remains a going concern. Good recipes and photographs keep staff on track to produce consistent flavour and presentation.
More often, customers’ expectations of a restaurant are built from images. Restaurateurs and bloggers are posting photographs of dishes on websites and Twitter. Adrian Richardson posts photographs of his dishes on Twitter to market his restaurant La Luna. Bloggers tweet photographs of his dishes during and after dining.
Beautiful appealing photographs can leave a restaurant vulnerable to such comments as “This is not what I ordered,” or “It doesn’t look like the dish on Twitter”. How do owners make sure that customers aren’t disappointed when served a dish they have been looking forward to?
Kemp provides photographs of his dishes to all staff so they have an easily accessible reference. “Photos help all cooks and chefs know what a dish is supposed to look like,” he says. Photos help staff to not miss items on the plate and help with consistency of presentation every time.
Photos need to be supported with accurate recipes and instructions. Dishes won’t pass customer scrutiny unless they are accompanied by flavour. Recipes help cooks and chefs know how a dish should be cooked and how a dish should taste, so that the flavour is the same every time.
Appealing photographs supported by accurate recipes protect Matt Kemp’s vision for and investment in The Montpellier Public House.
Stirring the Pot, by Nikkita Wood
A restaurant can’t survive without staff. It’s paramount to have competent and well trained staff both front and back-of-house to ensure the success and longevity of a restaurant. This topic was one of many at the panel discussion Stirring the Pot as part of Tasting Australia’s trade events on April 30.
Adrian Richardson, chef and owner of La Luna in North Carlton, instilled the importance of front-of-house staff knowing their product. The public are becoming more aware about the food they are consuming and aren’t afraid to ask questions. They don’t just want to know the cut of beef but whether the beef was grain or grass fed, Angus or Hereford, dry-aged, MSA Certified or what the marble score is, it’s really everything but the beast’s name.
At La Luna, staff also have input in the wine list, creating a positive relationship between workers and management.
Assaggio chef and owner Camillo Crugnale discussed incentives used to inspire staff at their café in Campbelltown. Gifts such as bottles of wine are used to motivate staff to sell spirits or upsell side dishes and desserts.
Ruby Stoddard, of Appellation at The Louise in the Barossa, revealed the importance of investing in juniors. “It’s hard to get quality staff to commit to a regional restaurant,” she says, so by continually training and investing time in staff, it ensures commitment and loyalty.
When it comes to kitchen staff, Jeremy Strode of Bistrode in Sydney knows that training the staff to understand correct recipes and food costs is essential to achieving a profitable business.
By paying staff well, creating an enjoyable atmosphere to work in and maintaining professional standards it creates a better environment for employees, restaurateurs and customers alike.
South Australia – from an outsider, by Steven Wiltshire
During Tasting Australia, a group of 17 students from very different professional backgrounds spent five days learning the foundations of food and wine writing from the expert tutelage of David Sly and Barbara Santich. The participants came because they have a passion for communication but also share a love of food and wine.
Lizzie Moult, a chef from Queensland’s Sunshine Coast Hinterland, made the trip to Adelaide specifically to attend the course, but also to investigate a city with a reputation for great food. It is her first visit, and she likes what we are doing. An early impression was of the quality of produce and enthusiasm that both purveyors and customers have for produce. Compared with “back home in Queensland”, she says Adelaidians unashamedly care about eating the good stuff and customers take an interest in seasonality, regionality, sustainability and provenance.
Lizzie says South Australians think about food and this is reflected in the little things: the way we will happily queue at a crowded market stall and the popularity of the Adelaide Showground Farmers Market on a Sunday morning. Although she has not ventured outside Adelaide, she is very impressed with what she has seen of our produce and says she will return with her husband to explore the food and wine regions of South Australia.
At Tasting Australia’s Feast for the Senses, exhibitors said that although most of their customers were South Australian, the reputation that brought Lizzie to Adelaide was strong enough to draw a large number of interstate and even overseas food and wine enthusiasts to the event. This is a reputation to be cherished.
Success in the Dining Business, by John Tomich
How do you determine success in a profession with so many layers of ingredients? Is it the diner’s experience, the chef’s recognition among his peers, the chef acquiring celebrity status, restaurant award accolades, promotion of food to children or strictly financial reward? A forum of celebrity chefs presented their views at the Taste Australia 2012 Stirring the Pot forum chaired by well know food writer John Lethlean, whose reviews appear in The Weekend Australian.
A satisfied and loyal diner is the critical goal of a successful restaurant. This can be achieved through quality food and beverages but also to devoted attention and engagement with the diner. Adrian Richardson of La Luna Bistro in Melbourne was of the view that a chef should be encouraged to make direct “hands on” contact with the diner at the table to discuss the meal, thereby creating a total dining experience. This, in turn, creates diner satisfaction and loyalty. He maintains that in order to maintain freshness and interest in his restaurant, regular tweaking of the menu is essential – this being based on continual review of his personal dining experiences, both locally and internationally.
The dining establishment needs to have a strong business structure, including marketing. Camillo Crugnale of Assaggio in Adelaide advised that meticulous attention be paid when selecting an accountant – especially one that specialises in the restaurant business.
Matt Kemp of Sydney placed a great deal of importance on marketing – the focused mostly on promotion and price. Matt discovered that well kept databases and email newsletters of special invitation offers maintain his “warm” loyal clients but also helped to attract new business. Profitability is helped by his custom of buying fresh produce direct from the grower, which also exposes him to the seasonal variations of produce.
The total dining experience must surely be the final determinant, being a distillation of all the various levels of ingredients in a successful recipe.
