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[title]Come September 8 to 11, the ICC Sydney will transform into a destination for hospo – get schooled at four education stages, including The Culinary Kitchen (in collaboration with Windsor Farms) and The Artisanal Bakehouse (in collaboration with Creative Ingredients), peruse more than 900 (yes, two zeroes) exhibitors, see what’s trending and find out ways to optimise your hospo establishment.
Fine Food Australia is the ultimate one-stop shop for trade advice. If you’re keen to level up your business, a ticket to this four-day event will get you there. Better yet, if you register now here before 8 September, you’ll score yours for free instead of having to pay $45 at the door.
For those looking for a little taste of the talent that will be talking across countless panels, we spoke to Opera Bar’s executive chef, Fernando Sanchez. Here’s what he had to say about some of the key insights to look forward to at this year’s event.
How do you deal with food waste in your job?
Food insecurity is a big problem. We’re meant to be one of the leading countries in the world for safety, so to fathom there are 3 million Aussies feeling food insecurity is shocking. The lucky thing about Opera Bar is we’ve got the general manager who is an industry legend and who genuinely cares, plus we have Matt Moran as a partner, so the food has to be up to his standard and his ethos.
I have to use the best of the best and support local. Matt is a restaurateur and a farmer, and we have to support fresh, seasonal produce. A lot of people are surprised by how much we make in-house. Here, we’ve got a lot of pride in what we do. We love what we do, we love supporting farmers and we love supporting local, so we’ll push a little harder. We’ll ensure that what we do is to the best of our abilities.
How hard is it to maintain a good work-life balance and team culture?
This isn’t just a job for me. It’s a lifestyle, it’s part of my identity. The way I look at food service is, if people are coming to my venue, they’re coming to my home, and I’m throwing a dinner party every service. I think we’ve all worked for some people and in places where culture isn’t the best and often if the culture is bad, you’re unproductive, mistakes happen, and it can go down a dark road.
I make sure this kitchen is a safe place. We realised back in Covid that people were burning out, so we put systems and rosters in place that reduce work hours and in hospitality, that’s almost unheard of, but it’s good because people are less tired, less people call in sick or are resigning because they’re burnt out – it’s been all positives.
I think chefs need to be more flexible, the industry needs to be more flexible. If your staff are happier and less stressed out, they’ll be more productive and you’ll get their loyalty because you’ve looked after them. As an industry, we need to change and adapt and be more flexible when it comes to people’s needs.
How is technology shaping how food services run, and how you interact with customers?
Tech has, and is, massively affecting foodservice and hospitality. Opera Bar was one of the first businesses to have me&u, and it’s completely changed the game when it comes to how the industry runs.
Back of house, you’ve got tech changing your POS systems to allow us to work out what our customer base wants, what’s selling and what’s not. You want to give the customers what they want. Tech enables us to do monthly health checks, to use data to see what’s going well and what’s not.
The rise of technology has also given us reviews. A lot of people think reviews are bad and focus on the keyboard warriors out there, but if you take a second and calm down and actually look at your reviews, you need to look at if there’s a trend. Are a lot of people complaining about the same thing? I get sent our reviews daily, and straight away I look at if there’s anything that’s being flagged as a common complaint, I look into it. Listen to your customers!
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