Catering Melbourne Blog

The joint venture, which is subject to formal documentation, has Simplot initially buying a majority interest in Top Cut, with the remaining interests retained by existing major shareholders who will continue to be involved in the management of the business.

Top Cut Executive Chairman George Giannarelli said: “Simplot is a highly regarded player in both the retail and foodservice markets and will bring significant expertise to the table. The strategic joint venture will allow both companies to capitalise on strategic growth opportunities particularly in the foodservice market by combining their sales and marketing efforts”.

Simplot Managing Director, Terry O’Brien said: “The joint venture will enable Simplot to provide our customers with a broader product offering on a national basis. Top Cut is highly regarded for delivering high quality meat and portion controlled products particularly into the commercial and institutional foodservice segments. Specifically, Top Cut’s portion control meat cuts and pre-packed chilled products will significantly build on and complement our existing customer offering”.

Under the leadership of Mr Frank Mesiano, Top Cut will operate as a discrete business and continue to trade in its existing locations and format.

Top Cut is a leading Australian owned foodservice group that has been operating for over 25 years with turnover in excess of $250 million. The group operates from state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities on the Gold Coast and Melbourne, with smaller operations in major capital cities serving local markets. Top Cut has a diverse customer base, with a strong domestic national food service presence selling under brand names including Top Cut, Tender Plus, Caterfare and Northern Rivers Meat Company. It also participates in export markets with offshore sales offices in Japan, Korea and China.

The Liquor Control Amendment Bill received Royal Assent on Tuesday 18 December, providing police with the power to ban troublesome persons from certain premises or areas for 24 hours, and even shut down licensed premises for 24 hours, effective from New Years Eve.

These changes aim to reduce instances of alcohol related violence or disorder and enhance community safety and enjoyment in entertainment precincts.

The Director of Liquor Licensing now has the authority to designate areas where police can impose banning notices on persons suspected (on reasonable grounds) of committing an offence in the designated area. The banning notices prohibit the individual from the designated area or from all licensed premises in the designated area as set out in the notice. The banning notice would be limited to 24 hours from the time the notice is served.

The Minster for Police, Bob Cameron, announced that 24-hour banning notices from entertainment precincts and police powers to shut licensed venues for 24-hours would begin on New Years Eve.

Two designated entertainment precincts, Melbourne’s CBD and Chapel Street in South Yarra and Prahran are the first areas in the initiative, with more to follow in the future.

Some of the offences that could result in a banning notice include: persons found drunk and disorderly; drunkards behaving in a riotous or disorderly manner; and obscene, indecent or threatening language and behaviour.

An Assistant Commissioner of Victoria Police will also be given the power to suspend a liquor licence for up to 24 hours enabling police to respond to immediate threats to public safety.

The Bill also inserted additional conditions under the Planning and Environment Act 1987, relating to the playing of live and recorded music at on-premise licenses where the permitted use of the premises is a restaurant. The conditions prohibit live musical performances and the playing of recorded music on the premises at levels higher than background music* level at any time outside ordinary trading hours.

However, these new conditions do not apply to music played at a private function held outside ordinary trading hours when such a function is held in an area of the restaurant set aside for the function and is attended only by those persons and guests.

The potential ramifications of this legislation are not yet fully known, however Restaurant and Catering Victoria is in ongoing discussions with Liquor Licensing Victoria to determine how this will affect operators in the industry. Restaurant & Catering Victoria will continue to monitor this situation and provide more information to members in the New Year.

*Background music is defined as a level whereby partons are able to conduct a conversation at a distance of 600 millimetres without having to raise their voices to a substantial degree in order to be heard.

Same wishes to you all and just to say the girls that waitressed on Saturday night at the below address alias Thelma and Louise were fabulous

Karen Bryant

9 Moonstone Crt
Wheelers Hill

Dear Lauren,

Thankyou for the excellent service at our party on Sunday. John was very professional and did a great job cleaning up afterwards - and the food was delicious.

Peter Pickering

A crackdown on imported prawns is set to blow the cost of a traditional Christmas seafood feast out of the water. Biosecurity Australia has warned that some imported prawns carry dangerous pathogens that could spawn new diseases in local prawn stocks. The Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service is conducting tougher testing, with importers predicting quotas of overseas prawns could be halved by Christmas. While many Australians buy fresh local prawns for Christmas, restaurants and other seafood outlets often use imported seafood in their cooked dishes. With smaller amounts of imported prawns around, restaurant buyers will increase their demand for fresh local prawns which will see prices soar, industry experts say. The Seafood Importers Association says Australia now imports about 29,000 tonnes of prawns from major sources including Thailand, China, Vietnam, India and Malaysia. The Australian wild catch is about 22,000 tonnes and farmed stock is about 3500 tonnes. Seafood Importers Association president Harry Peters said the changes would see about 40 per cent of prawns taken out of the market. ”Will prices rise? Absolutely,” he said. The Sunday Mail (Adelaide), November 18.

It is hard to imagine lettuce as a potential killer. The crisp leafy vegetable doesn’t conjure up the same salmonella fears as a soggy piece of raw meat, a bacteria-ridden egg or batch of leftovers reheated once too often. Nor should it. In Australia, where stringent quality controls and regulations exist across all primary and fresh produce industries, from producer to consumer, food safety standards are considered world-class. And it is rare for large food poisoning outbreaks to be traced back to a primary Australian supplier. But it can happen. And at least one Queensland researcher believes that, as globalisation increases the imported products entering the market and big business rapidly consumes the humble farm, so the risk of more widespread outbreaks of food-borne illnesses rises. Thomas Tenkate, a senior lecturer in environmental health at Queensland’s University of Technology, says consumer demands have dictated production and distribution methods for food. Demands for ”fresh”, packaged and ready-to-eat consumables means extra handling along the production line, from harvesting to the grocery counter, which increases the risk of contamination. The US learnt this lesson late last year, when fresh bagged spinach infected with E.coli was responsible for a deadly food poisoning outbreak which affected almost 200 people in 26 states. It resulted in 102 people being taken to hospital, and was blamed for at least three deaths. The Sunday Mail, November 18.

The pizza market is one of the most ferociously fought in the Australian marketplace, where prices can change on an hourly basis and new pizza styles are developed daily. At Domino’s, more than 470 stores across the country report sales to head office every 30 seconds—what Domino’s chief marketing officer Allan Collins has dubbed ”Store Wars”—allowing marketing strategies to be tailored instantly. Bad marketing disappears faster than a slice of pizza at a party. The pizza chain runs under the guidance of the evangelical chief executive and managing director Don Meij, the self-styled ”chief enthusiasm officer”.

Last year, the company reported a 44 per cent lift in sales with its total slice of the pizza market worth $518.9m. Revenue lifted 33 per cent. Meij has predicted net profit after tax next year will rise by between 25 and 30 per cent. Under Meij and Collins, the brand has dumped its long-standing positioning of ”I’ve got the hots for what’s in the box with the dots” for the new line ”The Domino’s Effect”, unveiled to franchisees and shareholders a few weeks ago. Collins says there are three key elements to the success of the company — marketing, logistics and taste. The Australian, December 3.

One of Australia’s top manufacturers and distributors of fresh meat products to the foodservice market, Top Cut Foods, and food giant Simplot Australia have entered into a strategic joint venture.

The joint venture, which is subject to formal documentation, will see Simplot initially acquiring a majority interest in Top Cut, with the remaining interests retained by existing major shareholders who will continue to be involved in the management of the business.

Top Cut executive chairman, George Giannarelli, said Simplot was a “highly regarded player in both the retail and foodservice markets and will bring significant expertise to the table”.

“The strategic joint venture will allow both companies to capitalise on strategic growth opportunities particularly in the foodservice market by combining their sales and marketing efforts,” he said.

Simplot managing director, Terry O’Brien, said the joint venture will enable Simplot to provide its customers with a “broader product offering on a national basis”. “Top Cut is highly regarded for delivering high quality meat and portion controlled products particularly into the commercial and institutional foodservice segments,” he said. “Specifically, Top Cut’s portion control meat cuts and pre-packed chilled products will significantly build on and complement our existing customer offering.”

Top Cut will continue to operate under the leadership of chief executive officer, Frank Mesiano in its existing location and format.

Top Cut has been operating for more than 25 years and has a turnover of more than $250m. It operates from manufacturing facilities on the Gold Coast and in Melbourne, with smaller operations in major capital cities serving local markets. It’s foodservice brand names include Top Cut, Tender Plus, Caterfare, and Northern Rivers Meat Company. It also participates in export markets with offshore sales offices in Japan, Korea and China.

Michelin is about to launch a first: its inaugural red guide to the restaurants and hotels of Tokyo. Michelin Tokyo 2008 is the French food bible’s exploratory foray into Asia. Introduced in France in 1900 so motorists need never be without a decent meal on their domestic travels (not to mention having their cars serviced), the guide created its Michelin star system 26 years later, becoming the benchmark for high achievers in the restaurant world. Well, in Europe, anyway. The guide now reaches beyond the borders of France to a dozen or so European countries and, since 2005, to the US (Los Angeles, Las Vegas, San Francisco and New York City); remote countries such as Australia have chefs with Michelin stars (garnered elsewhere) but no red guide. Japan’s hottest city lures the guide down roads previously uncharted. Japanese and Western critics have done the eating and testing, and there is a substantial list of French establishments as well as the (predominantly) Japanese list (whose subheadings include Teppanyaki, Soba and Kaiseki, and Fugu). There are a few Chinese and Italian restaurants, and two each under Spanish and Steakhouse. All the listed restaurants have stars: 118 singles, 25 two-starred and eight with three, including Joel Robuchon and Hamadaya, a 1912-founded geisha house that serves strictly orthodox Edo-style cuisine. The Australian. December 15.

With oyster rustling likely to become the industry’s biggest threat, NSW police have been trained to recognise the stolen molluscs. Growers’ groups have warned of an expected surge in thefts over the summer harvesting period. As many as 55,000 Sydney rock oysters were reported stolen last year, although the actual figure is thought to be much higher, obscured by under-reporting in the industry. Police in Port Maquarie and Forster have recently been trained to recognise stolen oysters and will increase surveillance of oyster beds and road-side vendors over Christmas. DataDot technology, sprayed on to oysters to form a microscopic signature, has been used in South Australia to cut theft and a trial is being conducted in NSW. The chairman of the NSW Farmers Association’s oyster committee, Mark Bulley, said the issue was becoming a priority. “The size of the pilfering that goes on is a concern,” Mr Bulley said. “I think just about every river does have activity, it’s just that some are greater than others.” Thefts are thought to take place at night, from boats, and increase in bad weather and in isolated areas. The oysters are sold in pubs, on roadsides, and to restaurants. Stolen oysters are not purged of bacteria and toxins, and the NSW Food Authority is concerned about the condition of the product sold. Since 2003 anyone caught selling stolen oysters can be fined up to $275,000, mainly because of the health risk. Sydney Morning Herald, December 17.