INSIDE FOODSERVICE: Showcasing Australian produce on the menu
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How much of a drawcard is Australian produce on today’s menus? Are customers willing to pay a premium for quality local produce over cheap imports? And how does growing awareness of the importance of food sustainability – at both the foodservice operator and customer level – play into this? Foodservice Rep spoke to three foodservice professionals drawn from different areas of the market to get their take on the value of showcasing Australian produce.
LISTEN: Showcasing Australian produce on the menu
Nick Kalegoropoulos
Nick Kalegoropoulos, director of Melbourne-based catering and events company Calibre Feasts which regularly stages corporate events as well as catering for weddings, functions and elite sporting teams, says he usually aims for at least 90 per cent of catering menus to comprise Australian product.
“Certainly when it comes to seafood people are willing to pay extra for Australian - they will always prefer a fresh Humpty Doo barramundi from the NT over frozen product imported from Asia,” Nick tells us.
“Provenance is also important, in that people ask about where the product has been sourced; especially in the case of prawns they want Australian, not farmed Vietnamese prawns and they’re happy to pay for them. The only time you might use frozen imported prawns is when they’re not the hero of the dish – for example in a prawn mousse you can probably get away with using imported product because it’s a lot cheaper, but if you’re doing a nice chargrill prawn on the barbecue grill then you'd always use a Queensland prawn.
“You wouldn’t even consider using imported meat, in fact I wouldn’t know how to find a US beef supplier in Australia ”
“When it comes to other proteins like chicken, pork and especially red meat, naturally everyone sources Australian because it’s simply better quality than imported product. You wouldn’t even consider using imported meat, in fact I wouldn’t know how to find a US beef supplier in Australia and no one is seeking that out. The only exception I can think of is if you wanted a particular flavour profile found in overseas product, for example you might seek out a Canadian bacon.
“Other exceptions are European or African spices: a lot of these are now being packaged and sold locally by major manufacturers, but often the imported product is a little bit cheaper because they can make and market it in more volume overseas than the Australian manufacturers can because it’s not their primary spice offering.”
Nick says there are also cases where there is no equivalent to imported product available on the local market. “We’re using some fantastic vegan cauliflower gnocchi sourced from Italy at the moment and every time we’ve served it here people say ‘it’s amazing’ and there’s just nothing like that produced locally so it’s become our go-to. So we judge those on a case by case basis but it’s not an everyday thing.”
He emphasises that food miles are important considerations in his menu planning, “because the fuel levies are a massive part of the actual cost of goods. Every week I’ll get an email from our key suppliers saying the fuel levy this week is 18 per cent plus. There's a baseline fuel cost then they charge another 18 per cent on top of that, and if you multiply that across all products plus delivery it really adds up.
“And in any case when you’re talking fruit and veg, obviously the more locally they’re sourced, the fresher they are – so you try to source as locally as you can. If they’re being shipped interstate and take three days to reach you in Victoria from Queensland, that’s going to impact on the quality. It’s also important in terms of traceability and pushback to the manufacturer, in that it’s easier to get a replacement for faulty product when they’re locally sourced. Also, depending on what product you’re buying, the packaging is often reduced as well because the product is not travelling as far, which is a further sustainability benefit.”
Forging relationships with local suppliers
Jake Smyth
Jake Smyth, co-founder of the cult burger chain Mary’s which operates a string of burger joints and self-described ‘dive bars’ around Sydney, says “a big part of our business is looking after the local industry”.
“I think there’s still a great deal of cultural cringe around ‘Oztraya’ especially in the culinary space,” Jake emphasises. “We’ve had great suppliers but often we’ve gone through periods in our industry of rejecting where we’re from - outside of some of the great producers we've always been shy of celebrating who we are and what makes Australia unique. We have some of the best growing conditions in the world, the most passionate farmers, winemakers etc in the world – there’s been a little bit of a sense of taking those things for granted when I was first coming up in the industry.”
“We have some of the best growing conditions in the world, the most passionate farmers, winemakers”
“In terms of our little part of the industry, we've always paid a lot of attention to where things come form - we work with some of the best beef producers in the world, with Greenhams in Victoria who run Cape Grim Beef; we've also had associations with O’Connor Grass Fed. Those two companies are without doubt absolute world beaters when it comes to the quality of their produce. When we tell people we use Gippsland grass fed beef to grind down into our patties they’re not surprised because that’s what makes them taste so great.
“We’ve also been working closely with Bega Foodservice over the past two years, rather than importing cheese from the US which might be arguably more 'authentic' as a burger cheese - but it’s not really authentic to us as Aussies, is it, to bring a US cheese all the way from there to stick in a burger on a dive bar in the backstreets of Newtown?
“Whereas we’ve got some of the best dairy farmers in the new world – the cheese we use from Bega Foodservice is delicious and fit for purpose and it’s Aussie. We pay Australian taxes, so do our farmers – we all benefit from the infrastructure of this country so it’s important to support it.”
“It’s also about keeping jobs and skillsets in Australia – we have incredible natural resources and some of those are human, and I think it’s really important that we look after the industries at home so we keep them alive and keep the knowledge base here.
Jake adds that Mary’s has forged strong ongoing relationships with local suppliers which help costs at a reasonable place. “We fight really hard to keep our burgers at the pricepoints they are. We're definitely at the higher end of the burger market but that’s by design - we want people to look at what we’re doing and say it’s worth every cent. Everything is made fresh in house - we cure our own free range Australian pork into bacon, we break down the free range Bannockburn chickens by hand, we make our own pickles, and these things do come at a cost, but I think you can taste the difference: there’s a level of care.
“These things do come at a cost, but I think you can taste the difference”
“It’s like the difference between buying a Bolognese mix from the supermarket or going to someone’s house where they’ve lovingly made one over 6 hours – there’s no comparison. Certainly in terms of raw cost produce, the quality of the Australian produce we get for the price we pay, I think our nation is very lucky.
“I also think food sustainability is important to everyone these days, or if it’s not it should be. Good stewardship of our natural resources is and should always be of vital importance. If we can use technology to improve our farming of certain produce so we don’t need to rely on imported product, that’s very important too. We don’t want to be amassing transit miles and the associated cost unnecessarily.
“Good stewardship of our natural resources is and should always be of vital importance”
“There’s nothing sadder to hear of than a specific skillset becoming extinct because of nothing more than a trade deal, that’s a really sad state of affairs. I’m not an economist, but I am a romantic - I really love the idea of Australians continuing to provide for other Australians. It ties in not only to the environmental but our history, our culture and our heritage going forward as well and they’re all important.”
Customers happy to pay as long as quality is there
Steve Sidd
Steve Sidd, managing director of Catering HQ which runs the food offerings in multiple RSL clubs throughout Sydney, says he tries to source locally as much as he can - particularly when it comes to Australian seafood.
“Obviously this comes at a premium, it’s definitely much more expensive than imported product, but we find customers are happy to pay more for Australian as long as the quality is there. Whatever we do source locally, we will definitely advertise as such on the menu – whether it’s Australian prawns, Australian pork rather than imported product: we highlight that on the menu and our customers do appreciate it.
“For certain other products, sometimes the Australian product is just too expensive but in those cases we won’t seek an imported substitute, we’ll simply avoid using that product on the menu at all because we don’t believe the quality of the imported product is up to par.”
“We do a lot of work on the backend before each season starts to secure our stocks”
Catering HQ’s large warehousing capacity gives it the buying power to secure stocks in advance, which helps protect against price fluctuations, as Steve explains: “A couple of weekends ago we went up to the fisheries at Mooloolaba and secured a lot of Australian stock for the upcoming Christmas season. We’re committed to those orders so when it comes to spring and Christmas time we have that product secured and we won’t be paying a premium when prices rise. So we do a lot of work on the backend before each season starts to secure our stocks.”
Steve adds, “Of course there are occasions when some customers don’t appreciate that Australian product is so much more expensive. Earlier this month we had a Christmas in July menu with West Australian lobster, which is an expensive product – but it’s Australian, not a Cuban or Brazilian lobster; it’s superior quality to that and I think our diners can tell the difference.
“We try to make sure that whatever we use supports our sustainability program and our suppliers’ programs as well”
“Sustainability naturally plays into this too. We're always looking at our sustainability statement across the group - when we source these products, we look at where the farms are located, how they treat the various products and their own sustainability commitment as well.
“We try to make sure that whatever we use supports our sustainability program and our suppliers’ programs as well. For example we’ve just met with a supplier which supports ethical treatment of animals and they will only buy products which conform to that, that then forms part of our program as well. So it goes down through the supply chain – by supporting our core values, we’re also supporting the core values of our suppliers and their suppliers.”
