Coffee Club Charity Ball 2011

www.FoodStrategy.com.au joined the team from Moffat at the Coffee Club Charity Ball 2011.
This bi-annual event now holds a warm place on the Brisbane social calendar. Held at Hall 2 of the Brisbane Convention Centre the theme was "Arabian Nights - Secrets of the Desert". Nearly 2000 guests feasted and danced to raise funds for the Royal Children's Hospital Foundation Brisbane. The final fundraising tally exceeding the target of $250,000.

Hosted by Channel 9's Catriona Rowntree (Getaway), Radio B105's Labby, Camilla and Stav and the Coffee Club's own celebrity John Lazarou, the soiree included an exquisite four course meal, with snake dancers, henna tattooing and an Arabian Market Bazaar for atmosphere.

Food Strategy has attended many trade shows in the exhibition halls but never have we seen it look so exotic with chandeliers, sashes and cushions topped off with formally set tables and decorations.

Raffles and auctions included big ticket items; business class flights to anywhere in the Emirates network, gold jewellery, cash, Douwe Egberts coffee machine, accomodation, smartphones, laptops, LCD tv. Bidding was wild on fabulous items including custom made jewellery, a dinner with The Coffee Club entrepreneur John Lazarou and his Executive Chef, holidays to Fiji and Thailand,a $5000 Flight Centre voucher, signed memorabilia by Pele, Socceroos, Johnny Depp, Katy Perry, Darren Lockyer, Lance Armstrong, Michael Schumacher, Robert Pattinson, Donald Bradman, Nelson Mandela and more.


Sponsors included among others; Bidvest, Channel 9, Emirates, Simplot, National Foods Douwe Egberts, Fosters, Fonterra, B105, CocaCola and our client Helen's European Cuisine.

On the night, (part owner) Emmanuel Drivas was quietly telling us how The Coffee Club charity balls started. His own child was haunted by cancer so he knows how vital the work of the Royal Children's Hospital Ocology unit is in ground breaking research.

Katrina Clunies-Ross, the mother of a young Royal Children's Hospital patient, gave a moving speech about her own daughter Carys.

Litte Carys was only 6 months old when she was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a cancer that forms on nerve tissue. As the tumour was very close to her spine, doctors could not operate to remove it. She underwend 5 months of chemo and contracted norovirus. Carys was isolated, given a blood transfusion and placed on a saline drip. Cary's latest MRI scan showed there is a small amount of tumour left in her body but her doctors are confident that she's now in remission.

Carys went into remission in August last year and doctors told Ms Clunies-Ross the same result would hardly have been possible ten years ago. An unsettling thought for a mother who also has two teenage children.
"She is a miracle, she beat cancer in her first year of life, even though it is so tough for her little body to be pumped full of toxins," Ms Clunies-Ross said. "I would tell people to give with your heart and know that if you save a child from cancer, you are not just saving their life, but next generations."

For those foodies keen to know the menu - here it is:
Sultan's Starters: Antipasto platter - calabrese sausage, semi dried tomato, char grilled eggplant, olives, dips, cheese and turkish bread.
Emirate Entrees: Chicken cannelloni, pistachio crumbs, tarragon cream sauce alternating with twice cooked salmon fillet, potato, avocado salad, dill and lime dressing.
Mirage of Mains: double lamb cutlet, potato and leek pie, gingered carrots, pea and mint puree anternating with baby barrumundi, vegetable tagine, citrus couscous, saffron butter sauce.
Aladdin's Delectable Desserts: Chocolate mille fueille, white chocolate mousse, toasted raspberry meringue alternating with Bhapa doi - velvet passionfruit yoghurt, berry compote, honey pillow puff.

www.FoodStrategy.com.au Local people, global vision.

Fine Food Australia - Sydney 2011 were you there?

Fine Food Sydney 2011 - What we saw.  By www.Foodstrategy.com.au
As most foodies will know, Fine Food 2011 was held at the Sydney Convention Centre. It's the largest international food and hospitality event on the Australian calendar.  This is the business end of things for the industry and closed to general public.
Thousand of products were displayed over 6 massive exhibition halls. Everything from juicy little blood oranges to production size combi ovens.  Every imaginable country was represented in their own pavilions; Greece, Italy, Thailand, China, USA, Pacific Islands, Cyprus and beyond.
Robert, Chris and Katrina represented the Food Strategy team this year.
We had intense training on the latest concepts, foodservice designs and solutions at an international forum by FCSI (Foodservice Consultants Society International), we met with existing clients, new clients, sampled and tested food and catering equipment from around the globe, developed media relationships and met up with new contacts made on Twitter and Facebook.

This Youtube video captures Fine Food 2011 as we saw it. See who you know.  Everyone was there' from Goldstein Eswood, JL Lennard, Skope, Stoddart, Electrolux, Zanussi and Lambaarginies to Breast Pops.  See if you can name the stars in the music track (clues at the end of the vid).

The annual Fine Food Best New Product Awards:

The awards are given in four categories - Best New Hospitality Equipment, Best New Foodservice Product, Best New Australian Retail Product and Best New Bakery Product.

In the Best New Hospitality Equipment category there were two winners -

1. Winterhalter Australia for its just released RoMatik XS reverse osmosis water treatment unit. The compact filter is designed to fit in smaller areas at the front of the house and offers a number of great advantages to customers; minerals are removed from the wash water, giving glasses and cutlery a perfect finish without the need for polishing.
2. Stoddart also winners for the Adande VCR2 refrigerated drawers (a brilliant unit!) Provides bulk chilled storage at the point of use in hot and busy kitchens. Simply pull out the drawer under the food prep bench - at your fingertips. Space saving format.

Adande Refrigerated Drawers by Stoddart

Winterhalter Reverse Osmosis Water filter

Apromo Trading grabbed the Best New Foodservice Product award with its Caviaroli product while W&P Reedy were victorious in the Best New Bakery Product award with its Asto Portion Cutter. (see the above Youtube vid)

Wagyu Oil by York Foods

The winner of the Best New Retail Product was York Foods for its new Wagyu Oil product. (A gourmet deli delight).


Another innovative product worth mentioning is the "Magic Carpet" Sushi Conveyor by Joseph Lee & Co. Sushi glides magically over a glass top conveyor that has no joins, seams or obvious moving parts. It truly appears to be a magic carpet. See our above Youtube vid.



2011 demonstrated a foodservice and hospitality industry that was focused on eco friendly concepts. Less energy, less water, less waste and less space.  Whether it be for saving money, time or the planet it's a sign of the times we live in.
Food Strategy is committed to ongoing training and research in foodservice and its application in design at an international level.

Read this little story if you have a moment:
It all began at the Brisbane airport awaiting our 7:30am flight (BNE to SYD). Hospitality professionals were buzzing. Industry friends from the catering equipment sector were coming over to say hello and compare notes. As we lined up for boarding we curiously watched a mature couple carefully carrying 6 little blue eskys. All of them were neatly taped and kept close at hand.
We pondered what might be inside that's so valuable; live animals, dead animals, heart, liver, eyes, or other life saving body bits perhaps. We dare not ask. More on that shortly.

During the flight, it was fascinating to eaves drop on others who were discussing in detail people in the industry that we know. I'm pretty sure they didn't realise that they were easy to hear.... interesting!  I sat next to a lovely couple who dozed for most of the trip until we were approaching Sydney airport. A conversation sprang up between us. They were from Beefy's Pies on the Sunshine Coast; previous Great Aussie Meat Pie gold medal winners at the Melbourne 2010 comp.  This year they had risen at 3am to catch our flight to Sydney to enter 6 beauties in the 2011 Great Aussie Meat Pie comp.  With anticipation I delighted in hearing how they lovingly packed their precious pies into the mysterious, little blue eskies - so that's what precious cargo was being hauled in the eskies!  Do you think our guessing of the contents was close?

www.FoodStrategy.com.au  Local People - Global Vision