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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Mentor. I'm Marke Boris Anthony Bariche. Welcome

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Speaker 1: to the Mentor. Thank you very much. Mark. Nice to

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Speaker 1: be here. And how good are we going? Oh? Really good.

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Speaker 1: We've we're not meet now we're talking about we're talking

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Speaker 1: about the Roosters. We've got a lot of things in common,

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Speaker 1: one of them being the Roosters. Yeah, it's good to

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Speaker 1: be a long you've been as a border for us.

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Speaker 1: I think this year I've knocked up forty five years

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Speaker 1: of supporting the Red, White and the Blue. I remember

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Speaker 1: my father took me to my first game when I

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Speaker 1: was like six or seven years old, back at the

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Speaker 1: old Sydney Sports Ground. Yeah. He used to be called yep,

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Speaker 1: and you know Russell Fairfax and Boba Riley and Muddy

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Speaker 1: Girr and Ken Kerry Bostad and Kevin Hastings that you know,

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Speaker 1: that sort of era and late seventies, early eighties. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: late late seventies, early eighties. Yeah, And I wasn't as

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Speaker 1: fascinated with the rugby as much as I was fascinated

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Speaker 1: with the dry ice. So I remember, I remember my

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Speaker 1: dad used to take me to the games, and back

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Speaker 1: in those days there was dry ice and all that

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Speaker 1: sort of stuff, and I'd sit on the grass and

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Speaker 1: I'd sort of just be fascinated with with a with

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Speaker 1: a dry ice, and the russ would score and then

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Speaker 1: I'd sort of look at the game and chair a

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Speaker 1: bit and whatever. But yeah, very typic a little kids.

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Speaker 2: They all go around and especially in the six or

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Speaker 2: seven years of age, they're all dean holes and while

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Speaker 2: their parents are sort of getting either aggravated or extremely

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Speaker 2: excited about the Russes winning. So just in context, So

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Speaker 2: you're the CEO and founder of Vixed Meats, a very

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Speaker 2: well known meat business.

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Speaker 1: Let's call it meat purveyors. I don't know what the

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Speaker 1: word is, supply wholesalers, retailers. Yeah, but you have a history.

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Speaker 2: You're come from a family you told me your dad now,

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Speaker 2: but you have a history of generational history of being

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Speaker 2: in the butcher business.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that'd be right. Yeah, I'm I'm proudly I'm a

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Speaker 1: fifth generation butcher. So you're actually like a butcher trade

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Speaker 1: as a butcher. Yeah. Well, I never normally did my apprenticeship,

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Speaker 1: but I learned under the best butcher in the world.

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Speaker 1: Who's my father, right, who's proudly been a butcher and

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Speaker 1: dedicated fifty five years of his life mark to the

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Speaker 1: craft of butchery. A remarkable man, an incredible role model

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Speaker 1: for me, a mentor. He's my father, he's my business partner,

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Speaker 1: and he's still best parents. Yeah. Yeah, my father retired

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Speaker 1: a couple of years ago, but you can't help himself.

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Speaker 1: He's still he's still there, sort of looking over my shoulder.

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Speaker 1: My sister and I now run the business. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: butchery goes back many, many generations in our fans beyond

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Speaker 1: your dad. Yeah, so his father, my great grandfather, my

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Speaker 1: father's brothers a butcher's So my father has two older brothers.

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Speaker 1: He's the youngest of seven. So literally butchery runs through

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Speaker 1: Alvein's mark. And despite my best efforts, I should say

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Speaker 1: my parents' best efforts, because actually my father, funnily enough,

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Speaker 1: he didn't want me to follow in his footsteps. Like

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Speaker 1: most migrants, so my background's creation my father, like all

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Speaker 1: the great sort of immigrants that came to this country

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Speaker 1: in the sort of sixties and seventies, my father, actually

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Speaker 1: he didn't want me to follow in his footsteps. He

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Speaker 1: wanted me to get an education, He wanted me to

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Speaker 1: become a I don't know, accountant, lawyer. He wanted me

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Speaker 1: to sort of pursue a white collar sort of career,

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Speaker 1: a better life, you know. Butcher. Butcher is hard work,

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Speaker 1: you know, very physical, you're on your feet, cold conditions.

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Speaker 1: Wasn't a very respected and appreciated sort of profession. So

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Speaker 1: my parents, like a lot of migrants, you know, sort

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Speaker 1: of one of their kids to sort of go to school,

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Speaker 1: finish school, university and sort of pursue a more professional

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Speaker 1: sort of career. So I was the first person. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it was quite amazing. I was the first person, both

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Speaker 1: on my mother and my father's side, to ever go

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Speaker 1: to university. So both on my mother and my father's

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Speaker 1: side very blue collars sort of backgrounds. And so I

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Speaker 1: went to university. I finished with a finance economics degree,

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Speaker 1: and I went off and pursued a career in investment banking,

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Speaker 1: and I went to work for a banker's trust back

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Speaker 1: in those days, so we're talking sort of early nineties now,

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Speaker 1: as a junior equities analyst. I'll never forget the first

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Speaker 1: day that I went to work. I got dressed up

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Speaker 1: in a suit and a tie, and my mom started

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Speaker 1: to cry and I was like, oh God, what have

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Speaker 1: I done something wrong? I have I put my retire wrong,

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Speaker 1: I've got something I've dirted my jacket or whatever. But

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Speaker 1: she was so proud. She'd never seen anybody on her

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Speaker 1: side of the family ever sort of go to work

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Speaker 1: in a suit and a tie. And so I pursued

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Speaker 1: that career, and look, six or seven months into it,

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Speaker 1: I loved what I was doing. Six or seven months

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Speaker 1: into it, something didn't feel right, you know. And I

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Speaker 1: remember coming home one afternoon because I was still living

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Speaker 1: at home at that stage, and I said to my dad,

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Speaker 1: I wanted to be a butcher. And at that stage,

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Speaker 1: my father had been working he was an employee working

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Speaker 1: for Andrew's Meat and which one Peter Peter. Yeah, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he'd been there for twenty five years, working with the

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Speaker 1: Andrews family. And he was quite shocked. He was quite disappointed,

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Speaker 1: and he said, no way, you know, look at you.

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Speaker 1: You know, You've started on this amazing career all that

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Speaker 1: sort of stuff. But look or wore him down. And

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Speaker 1: six months later, so in February of nineteen ninety six,

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Speaker 1: my father and I started our family business in Oxford

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Speaker 1: Street in Darlinghurst, just around the corner here, and that's

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Speaker 1: how vix Meat started, and that's how I entered the

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Speaker 1: meat industry. And like they say, the apple obviously doesn't

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Speaker 1: forll far from the tree, despite this sort of detour

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Speaker 1: that I took. And I'm very grateful for my education

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Speaker 1: and my background, and you know, the sort of six

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Speaker 1: or seven months that I spent in investment banking. But

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Speaker 1: you know, when you've got a family tradition, and when

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Speaker 1: you've got somebody like my father who's dedicated his whole life,

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Speaker 1: who's so passionate about butchery and meat and all that

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Speaker 1: sort of stuff. Yeah, like they say, the apple obviously

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Speaker 1: doesn't fall fart minitary, and I inevitably ended up following

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Speaker 1: in his footsteps and continuing that sort of family tradition.

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Speaker 2: It's interesting young people, boys and girls who go off

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Speaker 2: because the family is largely, especially micro families largely try

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Speaker 2: to influence them to be what the parents consider to

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Speaker 2: be a better lifestyle, better than what the parents have.

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Speaker 2: But the kids, it doesn't matter what the parents say,

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Speaker 2: it's no matter what the parents do, and that I

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Speaker 2: think influences all of us. So if you go back

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Speaker 2: and when you're a little kid, not of the roosters,

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Speaker 2: but a little kid watching your dad whilst you're at school.

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Speaker 2: Of the things you remember about your dad as a butcher,

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Speaker 2: like sort the things you saw. Nobody said, but the

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Speaker 2: things you saw.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you're so right about that. Yeah, there's definitely that.

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Speaker 1: You know, my parents wanted me to go in a

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Speaker 1: certain direction, but it was the things that I observed

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Speaker 1: them doing that have lived with me to this day.

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Speaker 1: And some of those things are work ethic. What does

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Speaker 1: that mean to you? It means everything. You know. I

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Speaker 1: watched my father get up at one o'clock every morning,

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Speaker 1: as he has for the last fifty five years, were

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Speaker 1: taking me through the lifestyle of a butcher. Yeah, it's

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Speaker 1: bloody tough. You know, early starts. Where does early start

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Speaker 1: mean that? I mean my father, I mean and for

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Speaker 1: a big part of my career. Also, I've been doing

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Speaker 1: what I've been doing for thirty years. Mark, you're up

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Speaker 1: at sort of one one thirty in the morning. Why

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Speaker 1: your day starts at two two thirty in the morning,

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Speaker 1: because you know that's when the deliveries come in. There's

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Speaker 1: an expectation from our customers that their meat arrives at eight,

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Speaker 1: nine o'clock in the morning. Our business is proudly supplied

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Speaker 1: and delivered to the best chefs, the best restaurants, the

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Speaker 1: best venues, the most well regarded chefs and restaurants in

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Speaker 1: the country. And they've got very high expectations not only

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Speaker 1: in terms of quality and consistency, but also service. And

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Speaker 1: they're open for lunch a lot of these places, and

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Speaker 1: they need to meet there early in order to be

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Speaker 1: able to prepare it and get ready for lunch and

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Speaker 1: dinner and all that sort of stuff. So in order

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Speaker 1: to be able to fulfill those orders, in order to

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Speaker 1: be able to fulfill them at a high standard, you

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Speaker 1: need to start day really really early. You need to

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Speaker 1: receive that meet in, you need to prepare it, pack it,

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Speaker 1: deliver it, all that sort of stuff. So, yeah, your

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Speaker 1: day starts a sort of two two thirty in the morning.

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Speaker 1: It's not negotiable because if you don't start your day

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Speaker 1: at that time in the morning, you just won't be

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Speaker 1: able to sort of meet those expectations and get those

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Speaker 1: deliveries out on time, all of those sort of things.

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Speaker 1: That's the life of a butcher, and most butchers, and

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Speaker 1: even in meat retailing, most butchers start their morning or

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Speaker 1: start their day at sort of five or six o'clock

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Speaker 1: in the morning. It's a little bit more civil in retail, okay,

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Speaker 1: but it's retail being like a shop front. Yeah, like

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Speaker 1: a shopfront, like your local neighborhood sort of butcher shop.

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Speaker 1: So your day starts really all early, whether you're wholesaling

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Speaker 1: or retailing. So that work ethic, that ability to be

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Speaker 1: able to you know, be disciplined enough, be motivated enough

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Speaker 1: to get your us out of bed at that time

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Speaker 1: of the morning, rain, haler shine, whether it's sort of

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Speaker 1: five degrees outside, whether it's you know, fifteen degrees outside,

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Speaker 1: whether it's raining, whatever it might be. Yeah, there's an

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Speaker 1: enormous amount of discipline, motivation, drive, determination that you need

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Speaker 1: to sort of have.

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Speaker 2: Well, that's a very interesting thing to say that because

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Speaker 2: you know, you guys, vix Meats are very successful, and

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Speaker 2: you know you've got a great, big business and you

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Speaker 2: do got lots of big customers, well known customers, and

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Speaker 2: you know it's not just a nothing wrong with just

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Speaker 2: a butcher shop.

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Speaker 1: But it's a big deal, okay, And you're talking about

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Speaker 1: work ethic.

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Speaker 2: There are two words to sort of go together get

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Speaker 2: thrown around a lot, But do you see it actually

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Speaker 2: as an ethic. In other words, working hard is part

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Speaker 2: of your fundamentals, as opposed to you need to do

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Speaker 2: it for your job, for your business.

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Speaker 1: I get.

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Speaker 2: I get that bit because you know, in the competitive

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Speaker 2: world you've got to give service and blah blah bah,

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Speaker 2: there's the expectations of the customer.

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Speaker 1: I get all that.

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Speaker 2: But do you do it because of that or do

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Speaker 2: you do it because it's just an ethic of yours

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Speaker 2: that you saw as a kid growing up. In other words,

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Speaker 2: because they like for me, I mean, I'm the same

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Speaker 2: sort of not we want butchers, but like I had

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Speaker 2: the same thing going growing up, as there's an ethic

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Speaker 2: of hard work that my old man I watched my

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Speaker 2: my dad do. In fact, we used to clean butcher

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Speaker 2: shops on Satday afternoons. We had a datat a cleaning business,

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Speaker 2: and as well as these other jobs, but we used

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Speaker 2: to clean butcher shops at about two o'clock.

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Speaker 1: We had two which shops we used.

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Speaker 2: To clean this to go and get all the saw

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Speaker 2: dust and clean the wood thing that you cut the

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Speaker 2: meat up on. Yeah, and put more saw dust down

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Speaker 2: and all that sort of stuff. I will school type

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Speaker 2: of cleaning, but but they're sort of bit of a side.

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Speaker 2: But the work ethic and I don't know if people

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Speaker 2: understand this that well, but the work ethic is not

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Speaker 2: because of the expectations of the people you're dealing with,

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Speaker 2: but it's actually an ethic.

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Speaker 1: That's inside you. Yeah. And where do you get that from?

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Speaker 2: Like I mean you And if let's say someone didn't

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Speaker 2: grasp with that, Let's say their parents are lazy motherfuckers.

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Speaker 1: And.

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Speaker 2: Where how do you do How does someone develop that

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Speaker 2: if they haven't experienced it or seen it as opposed

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Speaker 2: being told.

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Speaker 1: I think it's what I might say next might be

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Speaker 1: slightly controversial because I think everybody's got the ability to

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Speaker 1: work hard, okay, But then there's a difference between working

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Speaker 1: hard and exactly what you just said and ethic. You know,

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Speaker 1: something that's inside you, ye, something that dry I've got

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Speaker 1: to work hard, yeah, yeah, And I think that comes

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Speaker 1: from certain generations and if you look at our parents,

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Speaker 1: if we look at our grandparents, those humble beginnings, the

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Speaker 1: need to have to fight every day just to survive, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: just to survive, I think is something that becomes ingrained

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Speaker 1: in you, okay, And unfortunately that doesn't seem to exist

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Speaker 1: to the same level and extent nowadays.

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Speaker 2: And do you put that and do you put that

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Speaker 2: down to I'm just it's a little bit off topic,

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Speaker 2: but do you put that down to because I don't

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Speaker 2: blame the let's call it the younger generation, because they

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Speaker 2: haven't had to be that way, because because Australia has

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Speaker 2: become quite wealthy, and Australians generally speaking, parents in fact

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Speaker 2: for that matter, have become relatively speaking wealthy, especially relative

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Speaker 2: to the rest of the world, and as a result

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Speaker 2: of that, there hasn't been the need to work that hard,

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Speaker 2: more so these days, and therefore they've never really experienced

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Speaker 2: it them. And I often said to people, like, we've

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Speaker 2: had ridiculously low unemployment numbers for so long.

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Speaker 1: It doesn't matter who you are. You can get a

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Speaker 1: job and you can get good money. You can get

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Speaker 1: forty five bucks. In Nouri, we're cleaning cleaner.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean we have cleaners were getting fifty bucks

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Speaker 2: an hour, whereas cleaner used to be lucky to about

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Speaker 2: to pull.

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Speaker 1: Twenty bucks an hour.

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Speaker 2: And it's great money, Like fifty bucks an hour forty hours,

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Speaker 2: that's two thousand bucks a week.

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Speaker 1: And if you want to work that day Sunday, you

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Speaker 1: can probably push it up to three. Yeah, yeah, totally,

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Speaker 1: Like that's crazy money hunt fifty grand a year. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, I wholeheartedly agree with that. You know, it's

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Speaker 1: that struggle, that fight, that humility. You know, you love boxing.

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Speaker 1: I love boxing. You look at the background of most boxes, right,

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Speaker 1: they come from hard backgrounds, slums, poor backgrounds. Manny Pacauer,

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Speaker 1: Mike Tyson, all the greatest fighters in the world had

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Speaker 1: these really tough, humble struggle, all that sort of stuff,

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Speaker 1: and that is that environment that builds resilience, it builds

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Speaker 1: the termination all that sort of stuff. Look, I've got

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Speaker 1: four of my own kids. They're great kids, Okay, But

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Speaker 1: to your point, I've probably not set them up for

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Speaker 1: success because I have provided you know this, well you

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Speaker 1: didn't have yeah yeah, yeah, this comfortable environment, you know

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Speaker 1: what I mean, where they don't have to struggle, where

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Speaker 1: they don't have to fight. So you're torn as a parent, right,

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Speaker 1: because you want to provide your kids the best starting life,

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Speaker 1: but by default you're probably harming their ability to reach

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Speaker 1: their full potential or understand the importance of hard work, sacrifice,

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Speaker 1: all the sort of things that our parents and our

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Speaker 1: grandparents and all that sort of stuff had to do so.

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Speaker 2: For example, did your parents like we're in these suburbs

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Speaker 2: here at the moment, but like, but by the way,

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Speaker 2: it happens to be in the North Shore.

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Speaker 1: And in fact there's a lot of.

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Speaker 2: Wealthy people out the west as well, a lot. All

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Speaker 2: everybody ever talks about is it's European summer. Who's going

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Speaker 2: to Europe for the summer? Like did you ever see

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Speaker 2: your mom and dad take European holidays every year and

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Speaker 2: go to you know, in your case Croatia or you know,

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Speaker 2: my case Grease, Like just mean everyone I know who's

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Speaker 2: going to Greece? Like and I and psked me, are

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Speaker 2: you going agress? I say no, which is working, Like

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Speaker 2: I've got to work, and I do it because that's

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Speaker 2: how my dad was. And I'm not trying to I'm

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Speaker 2: not hero. I don't get me wrong. I'm not trying

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Speaker 2: to say that about himself. It's just what I know.

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Speaker 2: You'd be the same.

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Speaker 1: You can't.

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Speaker 2: You can't just get up and piss off and leave

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Speaker 2: your business loan and say oh, let's go on a

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Speaker 2: Maybe you do from time time, but it's not a

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Speaker 2: it's not an expectation.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, sacrifices have to be made and growing up, I

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Speaker 1: you know, I went without the things I wanted, never

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Speaker 1: went without the things I needed. So my parents provided

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Speaker 1: me everything that I needed. Food, roof of my head,

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Speaker 1: warm bed, yeah, a warm bed, I loving, caring, environmental,

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Speaker 1: those sort of things. But I wanted the latest sneakers,

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Speaker 1: you know what I mean, back in the day Jordan's

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Speaker 1: used to come out all that sort of stuff. I

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Speaker 1: wanted it. I never got it. My parents couldn't afford it, right,

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Speaker 1: and I couldn't, you know, going to Europe. And I

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Speaker 1: did remember going to Europe once or twice up to

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Speaker 1: the age of eighteen. It's not an expectation, no, no,

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Speaker 1: it was. It happened my mark every sort of maybe

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Speaker 1: seven or eight one years, you know what I mean.

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Speaker 1: Whereas there's an expectation nowadays that we're going out a

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Speaker 1: European trip. Yeah, yeah, every summer we're going to escape

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Speaker 1: the winter here and we're going to go to Europe

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Speaker 1: type thing.

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Speaker 2: So if you're so, if you're doing the startups, there's

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Speaker 2: lots of startups around, we know, lots and lots and

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Speaker 2: lots of them.

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Speaker 1: I we're talking about the work ethic.

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Speaker 2: What would you say to a startup about how they've

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Speaker 2: got to get a hit their head around, how hard

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Speaker 2: you got to work to succeed as a startup.

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Speaker 1: The main message for me is there are going to

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Speaker 1: be times where you're going to doubt yourself, where you're

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Speaker 1: gonna you know, you have to keep your foot on

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Speaker 1: that pedal NonStop twenty four to seven, and you need

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Speaker 1: to embrace the suck. You need to eat dirt, you

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Speaker 1: need to be humble. You just need to just shovel shit,

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Speaker 1: you know what I mean. There's no secrets, there's no shortcuts,

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Speaker 1: there's no you know, and everybody talks about it. You know,

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Speaker 1: you're successful, You're an overnight success. It just took your

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Speaker 1: twenty years to sort of enjoy that sort of success.

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Speaker 1: You know. There's just no secrets to it. Mark, It's

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Speaker 1: just commitment, dedications, sacrifice. You know. I remember the first

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Speaker 1: decade that my father and I started our business. I

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Speaker 1: was still in my twenties. You know. My friends were

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Speaker 1: finishing school, had sort of were unmarried. They were going out, clubbing, partying,

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Speaker 1: all that sort of stuff. I couldn't. I couldn't do it.

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Speaker 1: I could afford to do it. I could have done it,

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Speaker 1: but it meant consequences, you know what I mean, Like

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Speaker 1: I wouldn't be able to get out of bed, or

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Speaker 1: I wouldn't be able to perform at my best, all

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Speaker 1: that sort of stuff. It's those sacrifice is that you

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Speaker 1: have to make that are inevitably going to sort of

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Speaker 1: lead to the success that you are going to enjoy.

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Speaker 1: But that success won't happen overnight. That success might happen

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Speaker 1: in five years, ten years, fifteen years, twenty years, whatever

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Speaker 1: it might be. Can you remember time?

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Speaker 2: I'm going to get to break in a second, but

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Speaker 2: I really curious do you remember it. I'm sure there's

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Speaker 2: many more than one, But can you remember any one

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Speaker 2: time that you thought to yourself and your dad and

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Speaker 2: your talks, and my god, this is not going to work.

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Speaker 2: You know, this is too bloody difficult to break into

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Speaker 2: this particular market. Maybe we made it, We made a

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Speaker 2: mistake in this whole endeavor.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, there was a time. And I don't share this

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Speaker 1: and I don't speak about it openly because I'm a

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Speaker 1: little bit I was a little bit embarrassed about it,

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Speaker 1: especially early on. But when my father and I first

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Speaker 1: started our family business, we started in a retail butcher

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Speaker 1: shop in Oxford and Street and darling Hosts. So my

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Speaker 1: father came from a wholesale background with Andrews. But our

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Speaker 1: first business was this retail butcher shop in Oxford Street.

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Speaker 1: So we started as a retailer and we were failing

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Speaker 1: miserably as a retailer. What do you mean by that?

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Speaker 1: So Oxford Street Darlinghurst if you sort of think about

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Speaker 1: Oxford Street Darlinghurst in the late nineties, so ninety six,

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Speaker 1: the late nineties, Oxford Street Darlinghurst was like Norton Street

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Speaker 1: in like art was in each street, so door to

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Speaker 1: door restaurants, the Balkan restaurants, all that sort of stuff.

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Speaker 1: Even sort of Victoria Street Darlinghurst, Morgan's where we are

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Speaker 1: now whatever, it was just cafe restaurants whatever. It was booming, okay,

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Speaker 1: But Oxford Street and Darlinghurst was sort of you know,

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Speaker 1: and it is the sort of gay capital of Australia.

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Speaker 1: So single income or double income, no kids, no families

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Speaker 1: in that sort of area, so money just yeah. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So they were going out and eating in restaurants. They

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Speaker 1: weren't cooking at home. So we opened or took over

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Speaker 1: this retail butcher shop and there was no customers there

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Speaker 1: was no families. There was nobody sort of shopping in

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Speaker 1: that sort of area for meat. And sort of a

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Speaker 1: few months went by and we were thinking, Jesus, have

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Speaker 1: we made a mistake here? You know, we weren't making

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Speaker 1: any money. There was barely a half a dozen customers

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Speaker 1: that were sort of walking through the door. And it

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Speaker 1: wasn't until you know, and once again you're back against

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Speaker 1: the wall. So what do you do? You sort of

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Speaker 1: you know, you need to think laterally, you need to

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Speaker 1: think out the side of the square. You need to survive.

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Speaker 1: My parents had put their life savings into this business.

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Speaker 1: And I looked at the front door and I saw

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Speaker 1: all of these restaurants, and I just started knocking on doors,

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Speaker 1: you know, I started, you know, approaching these cafes and

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Speaker 1: restaurants and saying, hey, you know, I'm Anthony from VIX Meat.

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Speaker 1: We're a local butcher here in Oxford Street and Darlinghurst.

400
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Speaker 1: You must use meat. What about using a local butcher?

401
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Speaker 1: And that's how our wholesale business started. That was the

402
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Speaker 1: turning point, our turning point for our business and ultimately

403
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Speaker 1: what set us on the path that we ultimately were

404
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Speaker 1: able to create this successful, highly regarded business. Was because

405
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Speaker 1: we failed or we were failing at one thing and

406
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Speaker 1: had to pivot and start and go on a different path.

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Speaker 1: So that was significant for us. The next thing that

408
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Speaker 1: really happened that sort of you know, elevated us and

409
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Speaker 1: shot us to this sort of next plateau or level

410
00:21:17,640 --> 00:21:20,480
Speaker 1: was Level forty one restaurant. I'm sure you'll remember, yeah,

411
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Speaker 1: building Alan's. It was meant to be Alan Bond's apartment

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Speaker 1: now called chiff Tower now Chiffley Tower there, yeah, And

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Speaker 1: and it was where you know, the likes of Kerry

414
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Speaker 1: Packer used to go and have lunch and all that

415
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Speaker 1: sort of stuff, and it was an impossible place to

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Speaker 1: get into and I'll never forget. So we started to

417
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Speaker 1: sort of dig ourselves out of a bit of a

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Speaker 1: hole that my father and our find ourselves in. We're

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Speaker 1: dealing with Cafe one nine one, Morgan's, Grand Pacific, Blue Room, Raquel's,

420
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Speaker 1: the Boalkan restaurants. So we started to get a bit

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Speaker 1: momentum with these restaurants. And my father was very very

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Speaker 1: passionate about awful. So you know, all the stuff that

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Speaker 1: most people they like to eat, you know, livers, swear,

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Speaker 1: good wog food, no peasant food. Yeah, so my parents,

425
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Speaker 1: my father's upbringing, he couldn't his family couldn't afford, you know,

426
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Speaker 1: all the prime cuts. So it was all of this

427
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Speaker 1: sort of offul and all that sort of stuff that

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Speaker 1: he was raised his livers, you know, sweetbreads, all that

429
00:22:18,040 --> 00:22:24,000
Speaker 1: sort of stuff. Yeah, and my father proudly always used

430
00:22:24,040 --> 00:22:27,639
Speaker 1: to display this tray of offul in the and for

431
00:22:27,720 --> 00:22:31,240
Speaker 1: six months, nobody'd come into the shop and buy it,

432
00:22:31,280 --> 00:22:33,600
Speaker 1: you know, so every single day we'd have to throw

433
00:22:33,640 --> 00:22:36,840
Speaker 1: it out, and religiously my father would the next day

434
00:22:36,920 --> 00:22:40,240
Speaker 1: set up a new display. And I remember, I remember

435
00:22:40,920 --> 00:22:42,919
Speaker 1: I was down the back of the shop doing something,

436
00:22:43,119 --> 00:22:46,080
Speaker 1: and I remember the bell ringing on the door. Somebody

437
00:22:46,119 --> 00:22:48,439
Speaker 1: walked in and my dad having a conversation with somebody

438
00:22:48,440 --> 00:22:51,879
Speaker 1: about awful okay, and sweetbreads and all that sort of stuff. Anyway,

439
00:22:51,880 --> 00:22:53,679
Speaker 1: I didn't make much of it because I thought myself,

440
00:22:53,720 --> 00:22:56,880
Speaker 1: you know, he hasn't sold any offl for six months.

441
00:22:56,880 --> 00:22:59,800
Speaker 1: He's not going to sell any today. Anyway, the next day,

442
00:23:00,400 --> 00:23:03,719
Speaker 1: so I pick it up. And you know when somebody

443
00:23:03,720 --> 00:23:06,000
Speaker 1: sort of says their name in a way that you're

444
00:23:06,040 --> 00:23:08,879
Speaker 1: meant to know who they are. Yeah, So it was,

445
00:23:08,920 --> 00:23:11,639
Speaker 1: you know, he introduced himself, Hi, this is Dip mar Soyer.

446
00:23:11,800 --> 00:23:14,200
Speaker 1: And then there was this uncomfortable sort of pause or whatever,

447
00:23:14,240 --> 00:23:16,720
Speaker 1: because I didn't know who this guy was. Anyway, Look,

448
00:23:16,920 --> 00:23:20,600
Speaker 1: I'm the chef of executive chef of Level forty one restaurant.

449
00:23:20,920 --> 00:23:24,520
Speaker 1: I was in your shop yesterday, okay, and I bought

450
00:23:24,560 --> 00:23:28,560
Speaker 1: some Ville sweetbreads. And then I was, oh, you're the guy,

451
00:23:28,680 --> 00:23:29,960
Speaker 1: you know, because he was the only guy in the

452
00:23:30,040 --> 00:23:32,119
Speaker 1: last six months that walked into the shop and bought

453
00:23:32,280 --> 00:23:35,359
Speaker 1: some off or And he goes, look, I've got this restaurant.

454
00:23:36,240 --> 00:23:41,080
Speaker 1: It's in the city, and you know, do you sell

455
00:23:41,240 --> 00:23:43,800
Speaker 1: fresh chicken bones? And I thought it was a really

456
00:23:43,840 --> 00:23:46,080
Speaker 1: weird thing for him to ask, because fresh chicken bones

457
00:23:46,080 --> 00:23:49,320
Speaker 1: are pretty basic, pretty simple, you know. I was like, yeah,

458
00:23:49,320 --> 00:23:50,879
Speaker 1: we can get fresh chicken bones. Oh would you be

459
00:23:50,920 --> 00:23:53,560
Speaker 1: able to sort of supply sixty kilos of fresh chicken

460
00:23:53,600 --> 00:23:56,560
Speaker 1: bones to my restaurant every day? And I was like, yeah,

461
00:23:56,600 --> 00:23:59,320
Speaker 1: that's no problems. Not the biggest sale I was ever

462
00:23:59,320 --> 00:24:00,720
Speaker 1: going to make. I think think it was like a

463
00:24:00,760 --> 00:24:04,600
Speaker 1: fifteen dollar sale or whatever. Anyway, I got off the phone.

464
00:24:04,680 --> 00:24:06,920
Speaker 1: Dad asked me, oh, who's that on the phone. I goes, oh, Dad,

465
00:24:06,920 --> 00:24:08,520
Speaker 1: that was that guy that came in yesterday and put

466
00:24:08,520 --> 00:24:11,520
Speaker 1: some Ville sweetrests for you. Oh right, great, I remember him.

467
00:24:11,720 --> 00:24:13,560
Speaker 1: What does he need? He owns a restaurant in the city.

468
00:24:13,600 --> 00:24:15,760
Speaker 1: He wants sixty kill our chicken bones. My dad's eyes

469
00:24:15,840 --> 00:24:19,080
Speaker 1: rolled over because it was like a fifteen dollar sale. Now,

470
00:24:19,119 --> 00:24:21,359
Speaker 1: the big issue that I had was I didn't have

471
00:24:21,359 --> 00:24:24,280
Speaker 1: a delivery van at that stage. I was making deliveries

472
00:24:24,359 --> 00:24:26,520
Speaker 1: up and down Oxford Street with a trolley. That's all

473
00:24:26,520 --> 00:24:28,600
Speaker 1: I needed, you know. So all of our customers were

474
00:24:28,640 --> 00:24:30,800
Speaker 1: in Oxtra Street, so I was I was doing these

475
00:24:30,800 --> 00:24:33,879
Speaker 1: deliveries with a trolley running up and down Oxrad Street.

476
00:24:34,000 --> 00:24:36,679
Speaker 1: So we didn't have a delivery van. So that afternoon

477
00:24:36,840 --> 00:24:38,760
Speaker 1: there's a bit of a pattern here of me twisting

478
00:24:38,800 --> 00:24:42,520
Speaker 1: my dad's arm and convincing him to do silly, stupid things, okay,

479
00:24:43,400 --> 00:24:46,520
Speaker 1: over our thirty year career. That afternoon we found ourselves

480
00:24:46,520 --> 00:24:51,200
Speaker 1: on Paramatter Road in in you know where Paramounter Raid

481
00:24:51,240 --> 00:24:53,159
Speaker 1: in Paramatta where that you know it used to be

482
00:24:53,160 --> 00:24:54,720
Speaker 1: all the sort of car yards and all that sort

483
00:24:54,720 --> 00:24:57,439
Speaker 1: of stuff. And I convinced my dad to buy a

484
00:24:57,480 --> 00:25:01,760
Speaker 1: fifteen thousand dollars delivery van and for a fifteen dollar

485
00:25:01,880 --> 00:25:03,920
Speaker 1: delivery to Level forty one restaurant.

486
00:25:04,040 --> 00:25:04,240
Speaker 2: You know.

487
00:25:04,840 --> 00:25:09,199
Speaker 1: Anyway, the next morning made the delivery, fighting traffic the

488
00:25:09,240 --> 00:25:11,560
Speaker 1: whole you know, there and back. Took me about an

489
00:25:11,600 --> 00:25:14,560
Speaker 1: hour and a half of my time. We made a

490
00:25:14,600 --> 00:25:17,560
Speaker 1: fifteen thousand dollars investment in this van for a fifteen

491
00:25:17,640 --> 00:25:21,240
Speaker 1: dollar sale. Okay, anyway, For the next three or four months,

492
00:25:21,320 --> 00:25:23,840
Speaker 1: that's all we supplied Dip Marsayer and Level forty one

493
00:25:23,960 --> 00:25:27,199
Speaker 1: restaurant sixty kilos of fresh chicken bones. Okay. But I

494
00:25:27,280 --> 00:25:30,119
Speaker 1: stuck at it, and three months later ditmar rang up.

495
00:25:30,160 --> 00:25:31,800
Speaker 1: It must have been a test. I'm thinking it was

496
00:25:31,840 --> 00:25:35,359
Speaker 1: maybe a test to see how committed we were to

497
00:25:35,440 --> 00:25:38,159
Speaker 1: sort of supplying him, being a supplier of his or whatever.

498
00:25:38,640 --> 00:25:40,760
Speaker 1: Three or four months later he rang up. He goes, oh,

499
00:25:40,840 --> 00:25:43,320
Speaker 1: do you do anything other than chicken bones? And I

500
00:25:43,359 --> 00:25:45,359
Speaker 1: was like, oh, man, yeah, yeah, of course we do,

501
00:25:45,440 --> 00:25:49,120
Speaker 1: you know, beeflam or whatever. Within a couple of months,

502
00:25:49,200 --> 00:25:52,760
Speaker 1: he was spending fifteen thousand dollars a week with us, okay,

503
00:25:53,080 --> 00:25:57,199
Speaker 1: which was more than fifty percent of our overall revenue

504
00:25:57,280 --> 00:26:02,760
Speaker 1: every single week. And beyond the mark, you know, the

505
00:26:02,760 --> 00:26:06,919
Speaker 1: credibility that it gave our business dealing with eleven forty.

506
00:26:07,080 --> 00:26:10,959
Speaker 1: I was able then to introduce myself to Michael McMahon

507
00:26:11,000 --> 00:26:16,000
Speaker 1: att Catalina, Neil Perry at Rockpool Tetsuyer Rosel and from

508
00:26:16,040 --> 00:26:18,560
Speaker 1: there the momentum just grew. You know, I was able

509
00:26:18,600 --> 00:26:21,360
Speaker 1: to sort of build this business based on the fact

510
00:26:21,400 --> 00:26:23,919
Speaker 1: that we were servicing, supplying the best chefs and the

511
00:26:23,920 --> 00:26:25,080
Speaker 1: best restaurants in the country.

512
00:26:25,080 --> 00:26:27,520
Speaker 2: And that's this history, and that's an important lesson. So

513
00:26:28,320 --> 00:26:30,720
Speaker 2: you sometimes you've got to just work at work, at work,

514
00:26:30,720 --> 00:26:33,760
Speaker 2: at hangout to get one good proxy, one good reference

515
00:26:33,800 --> 00:26:36,479
Speaker 2: point about the quality of your product and the service,

516
00:26:37,160 --> 00:26:39,760
Speaker 2: and it doesn't matter. Sometimes it might take a year

517
00:26:39,800 --> 00:26:41,840
Speaker 2: to do it, but no, it doesn't matter what the

518
00:26:41,840 --> 00:26:45,360
Speaker 2: business is. But that one proxy, that one reference point,

519
00:26:45,720 --> 00:26:48,639
Speaker 2: assuming you do a good job, then becomes a launching

520
00:26:48,640 --> 00:26:50,960
Speaker 2: pad which you can leverage into like stacks of other

521
00:26:51,000 --> 00:26:53,960
Speaker 2: customers and or clients. And sometimes we try to chase

522
00:26:54,000 --> 00:26:56,399
Speaker 2: too many, especially in the startup world, we try to

523
00:26:56,480 --> 00:26:59,240
Speaker 2: chase too many. We don't concentrate anyone in particular.

524
00:26:59,440 --> 00:27:01,919
Speaker 1: We just got to choose one and go hard for it.

525
00:27:01,960 --> 00:27:04,639
Speaker 2: Assuming you know that you can achieve, you think you're

526
00:27:04,680 --> 00:27:06,639
Speaker 2: can achieve it, you just go hard for it until

527
00:27:06,680 --> 00:27:08,800
Speaker 2: you get there. I quickly want to just be going

528
00:27:08,840 --> 00:27:10,520
Speaker 2: together break. But before I go to the break, anything,

529
00:27:10,800 --> 00:27:14,120
Speaker 2: just one thing for anyone who's listening. As I recall

530
00:27:14,320 --> 00:27:17,680
Speaker 2: sweetbreads is sort of like a fatty bit of meat

531
00:27:17,680 --> 00:27:19,359
Speaker 2: that sort of sits behind the neck or something like that.

532
00:27:19,440 --> 00:27:22,159
Speaker 1: It's a gland. That is a gland that sits in

533
00:27:22,200 --> 00:27:26,320
Speaker 1: the throat. Describe it. Yeah, there's not many people would

534
00:27:26,280 --> 00:27:29,119
Speaker 1: have had it. Yeah, and it's bloody delicious. It's a delicacy.

535
00:27:29,160 --> 00:27:32,240
Speaker 1: It doesn't sound very sexy or very appetizing, but it's

536
00:27:32,280 --> 00:27:37,040
Speaker 1: a delicacy. So it's a gland, okay. And how you

537
00:27:37,040 --> 00:27:39,520
Speaker 1: sort of prepare it your sort of you know, you

538
00:27:39,600 --> 00:27:41,879
Speaker 1: soak it in milk, okay, and that sort of gets

539
00:27:41,880 --> 00:27:43,800
Speaker 1: all rid of all the sort of the blood and

540
00:27:43,840 --> 00:27:45,639
Speaker 1: all that sort of stuff in it, and then you

541
00:27:45,680 --> 00:27:48,320
Speaker 1: fry them, okay, And you fry them and they're sort

542
00:27:48,320 --> 00:27:54,520
Speaker 1: of just this pillowy, sort of soft it's like fatty.

543
00:27:54,560 --> 00:27:57,640
Speaker 1: It's nearly fatty, but it's not fatty. Yeah, yeah, it's Yeah,

544
00:27:57,680 --> 00:28:01,840
Speaker 1: it has that fatty sort of texture about it, but

545
00:28:01,880 --> 00:28:04,159
Speaker 1: it's not fat it's this sort of gland. It's very

546
00:28:04,200 --> 00:28:06,560
Speaker 1: hard to sort of explain. Greeks love it. Yeah, Greek.

547
00:28:06,560 --> 00:28:07,960
Speaker 2: The Greek people love it. I mean a lot of

548
00:28:08,000 --> 00:28:12,040
Speaker 2: Europeans love it. You only get too I guess, get.

549
00:28:11,840 --> 00:28:14,960
Speaker 1: Too per animal. Yeah, and they're tiny, they're barely sort

550
00:28:14,960 --> 00:28:17,280
Speaker 1: of fifty or sixty grams each, you know. Yeah, I've

551
00:28:17,280 --> 00:28:17,600
Speaker 1: had him.

552
00:28:17,600 --> 00:28:19,000
Speaker 2: I've had him in a Greek restaurant that I used

553
00:28:19,000 --> 00:28:21,600
Speaker 2: to go to a place called the Ness Meant for

554
00:28:21,680 --> 00:28:24,639
Speaker 2: many many years, they used to I haven't seen sweet

555
00:28:24,680 --> 00:28:27,760
Speaker 2: breads anywhere for a long long time, but as I recorded,

556
00:28:28,000 --> 00:28:30,880
Speaker 2: they were crumbed ones I had, and they were really delicious.

557
00:28:30,880 --> 00:28:33,720
Speaker 2: But also know that they were probably a little bit

558
00:28:33,720 --> 00:28:35,360
Speaker 2: fatty because that's what I used to away order every

559
00:28:35,359 --> 00:28:35,800
Speaker 2: time I went there.

560
00:28:35,880 --> 00:28:38,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, but they got the same texture as lambranes. Yeah,

561
00:28:39,320 --> 00:28:43,120
Speaker 1: people have tried. Yeah. Soft, but it's a delicate yeah. Yeah,

562
00:28:43,240 --> 00:28:46,440
Speaker 1: but it's a super food also, so beyond being a delicacy.

563
00:28:46,480 --> 00:28:49,360
Speaker 1: And it's a superfood because awful is you know in

564
00:28:49,440 --> 00:28:52,920
Speaker 1: terms of nutrients and how nutrient dense they are and

565
00:28:52,960 --> 00:28:54,440
Speaker 1: all that sort of stuff. I don't want to go

566
00:28:54,520 --> 00:28:57,320
Speaker 1: down this path, No, I want to go. It's been

567
00:28:57,320 --> 00:29:00,840
Speaker 1: demonized for a while or whatever, but it's a super food.

568
00:29:00,880 --> 00:29:04,280
Speaker 1: You know. It's a fundamental building block to sort of

569
00:29:04,320 --> 00:29:10,760
Speaker 1: having a highly nutritious, healthy diet, you know, and offl

570
00:29:11,000 --> 00:29:13,240
Speaker 1: is the next level of that in terms of how

571
00:29:13,360 --> 00:29:15,719
Speaker 1: nutrient dens it is and how good it is. So

572
00:29:15,960 --> 00:29:19,880
Speaker 1: you can have one hundred grams of veal liver, for instance, okay,

573
00:29:20,120 --> 00:29:22,760
Speaker 1: and that's as good as having four hundred grams of

574
00:29:24,040 --> 00:29:26,600
Speaker 1: or three hundred grams of beef or lamb or whatever.

575
00:29:27,360 --> 00:29:31,480
Speaker 1: You need to eat one hundred kilos of kale, okay,

576
00:29:31,800 --> 00:29:34,600
Speaker 1: in order to get the same nutrients that you'll get

577
00:29:34,600 --> 00:29:36,400
Speaker 1: out of eating one hundred grams or one hundred and

578
00:29:36,440 --> 00:29:38,360
Speaker 1: fifty grams of your liver. You know, I want to

579
00:29:38,360 --> 00:29:40,360
Speaker 1: talk more about this. Let's go. The break comes straight back.

580
00:29:47,520 --> 00:29:48,360
Speaker 1: I'm back from the break.

581
00:29:48,360 --> 00:29:51,000
Speaker 2: I'm here with Anthony and we are talking all things

582
00:29:51,000 --> 00:29:51,760
Speaker 2: at vix Meats.

583
00:29:52,120 --> 00:29:52,480
Speaker 1: That would.

584
00:29:53,200 --> 00:29:56,040
Speaker 2: I really appreciate the story and how you and your

585
00:29:56,120 --> 00:29:57,760
Speaker 2: dad said this business up in the mid nineties, and

586
00:29:58,440 --> 00:30:01,719
Speaker 2: actually how you've first worked out out supplying wholesale. At

587
00:30:01,720 --> 00:30:04,640
Speaker 2: wholesale is probably better than supplying a retail and that

588
00:30:04,760 --> 00:30:06,600
Speaker 2: was sort of forced upon it. That was a great pivot,

589
00:30:06,960 --> 00:30:09,120
Speaker 2: and we all have to do pivots every now and then,

590
00:30:09,680 --> 00:30:12,000
Speaker 2: let me just let's just have a little think about

591
00:30:12,080 --> 00:30:16,080
Speaker 2: now the meat industry as a as an industry, so

592
00:30:17,600 --> 00:30:19,920
Speaker 2: there is, like everything in the world these days, is

593
00:30:19,920 --> 00:30:23,520
Speaker 2: a division between meat eaters and non meaders. Once upon

594
00:30:23,520 --> 00:30:25,080
Speaker 2: a time you never heard from a non meat eater.

595
00:30:25,840 --> 00:30:27,560
Speaker 1: Then I'm not going to call them vegans, where just

596
00:30:28,120 --> 00:30:28,920
Speaker 1: a non meat eater.

597
00:30:30,760 --> 00:30:33,840
Speaker 2: But there I presume there's enough meat eaters in the world,

598
00:30:34,080 --> 00:30:36,400
Speaker 2: and it's not something you're concerned about that meat will

599
00:30:36,440 --> 00:30:40,640
Speaker 2: become one of those things that we stop consuming, irrespective

600
00:30:40,720 --> 00:30:42,880
Speaker 2: you know, all the stuff they're talking about, you know,

601
00:30:43,000 --> 00:30:46,400
Speaker 2: animals creating meat, cows creating meat, and all those sorts

602
00:30:46,400 --> 00:30:50,400
Speaker 2: of things. We're sure position on that. So let's leave

603
00:30:50,480 --> 00:30:53,200
Speaker 2: nutrition aside from moment just as an industry.

604
00:30:53,760 --> 00:30:58,080
Speaker 1: I'm deeply respectful of the fact that everybody has a choice,

605
00:30:58,160 --> 00:31:03,800
Speaker 1: you know, and for me, I don't I don't want to.

606
00:31:04,120 --> 00:31:06,680
Speaker 1: I'm not going to deny the fact that the meat

607
00:31:06,760 --> 00:31:11,440
Speaker 1: industry as a whole needs to take some serious responsibility

608
00:31:11,640 --> 00:31:16,440
Speaker 1: in and around its impact on the environment. Okay, and yeah,

609
00:31:16,720 --> 00:31:21,240
Speaker 1: methane production and you know, cows belching and farting and

610
00:31:21,280 --> 00:31:24,640
Speaker 1: all that sort of stuff. The production of meat in

611
00:31:24,720 --> 00:31:27,360
Speaker 1: terms of its energy and water usage, all that sort

612
00:31:27,360 --> 00:31:30,960
Speaker 1: of stuff. I think every industry, not just the meat industry,

613
00:31:31,160 --> 00:31:34,560
Speaker 1: needs to take a good look in terms of what

614
00:31:34,800 --> 00:31:38,920
Speaker 1: ultimate impact that it has on the environment. I know that.

615
00:31:39,760 --> 00:31:44,000
Speaker 1: You know there was this period you know what was it.

616
00:31:44,000 --> 00:31:47,960
Speaker 1: It was it was sort of probably just before COVID,

617
00:31:48,040 --> 00:31:53,880
Speaker 1: you know, where meat was demonized. It was considered not

618
00:31:54,000 --> 00:31:56,400
Speaker 1: good for you in terms of your health and well being.

619
00:31:57,240 --> 00:31:59,960
Speaker 1: It was it was considered one of the biggest control

620
00:32:00,000 --> 00:32:05,640
Speaker 1: tribute to the deterioration of the environment, the impact on

621
00:32:05,680 --> 00:32:10,080
Speaker 1: the environment, it's carbon footprint, so to speak. That then

622
00:32:10,280 --> 00:32:15,520
Speaker 1: led to this huge interest and explosion in plant based

623
00:32:15,560 --> 00:32:20,320
Speaker 1: meat alternatives. You'll saw companies like Beyond and Impossible just

624
00:32:20,760 --> 00:32:24,880
Speaker 1: come out of nowhere, and you know there's stock prices

625
00:32:24,920 --> 00:32:28,479
Speaker 1: sort of skyrocket and all this buzz around sort of

626
00:32:28,560 --> 00:32:32,440
Speaker 1: plant based meat alternatives. Look, the reality is marked, there's

627
00:32:32,480 --> 00:32:34,719
Speaker 1: going to be nine billion people on this planet by

628
00:32:34,800 --> 00:32:38,640
Speaker 1: twenty fifty. There isn't enough meat. There isn't enough food

629
00:32:39,200 --> 00:32:42,680
Speaker 1: that's going to be able to supply all of those people.

630
00:32:42,720 --> 00:32:44,920
Speaker 2: So the fundamental problem is not enough food. Yeah, yeah,

631
00:32:44,960 --> 00:32:46,080
Speaker 2: so we know where it comes from.

632
00:32:46,320 --> 00:32:50,720
Speaker 1: So I'm completely open to coming up with alternatives, but

633
00:32:50,800 --> 00:32:54,840
Speaker 1: as long as there's transparency in and around those alternatives,

634
00:32:55,640 --> 00:32:58,360
Speaker 1: I think it's all good. But yeah, we need to

635
00:32:58,400 --> 00:33:01,040
Speaker 1: find solutions in terms of how we're going to feed

636
00:33:01,080 --> 00:33:05,160
Speaker 1: the world. Okay, with with with with good quality food?

637
00:33:05,520 --> 00:33:09,360
Speaker 1: Now process food? We know, you know, don't question how

638
00:33:09,440 --> 00:33:12,680
Speaker 1: much good food costs, question how much bad food? How

639
00:33:12,760 --> 00:33:15,360
Speaker 1: cheap bad food is? You know, so the answer isn't

640
00:33:15,440 --> 00:33:19,000
Speaker 1: process food either. You know, there's there's a lot of

641
00:33:19,040 --> 00:33:23,000
Speaker 1: science that that that tells you that that you know,

642
00:33:23,440 --> 00:33:26,720
Speaker 1: plants and animals, you know, vegetables, meat, all that sort

643
00:33:26,760 --> 00:33:32,080
Speaker 1: of stuff are the fundamental building blocks to having a healthy, happy,

644
00:33:32,560 --> 00:33:35,080
Speaker 1: long life. And all of us want to be happy,

645
00:33:35,200 --> 00:33:37,640
Speaker 1: healthy and live a long life. I haven't met anybody

646
00:33:37,680 --> 00:33:39,840
Speaker 1: that wants to be happy and healthy but not live

647
00:33:39,880 --> 00:33:42,880
Speaker 1: a long life or or unhappy, live a long life

648
00:33:42,960 --> 00:33:45,320
Speaker 1: and healthy, you know, all of us want those three things.

649
00:33:45,720 --> 00:33:48,520
Speaker 1: And good food and good quality food is a part

650
00:33:48,560 --> 00:33:51,719
Speaker 1: of that sort of equation. So yeah, Look, the mean

651
00:33:51,800 --> 00:33:55,360
Speaker 1: industry I think has a big part to play in

652
00:33:55,440 --> 00:33:59,880
Speaker 1: terms of feeding the world. Okay, it has to tax

653
00:34:00,040 --> 00:34:02,959
Speaker 1: and responsibility in around its carbon footprint. But then at

654
00:34:03,000 --> 00:34:06,080
Speaker 1: the same time, regenerary farming, okay, is a way that

655
00:34:06,120 --> 00:34:10,000
Speaker 1: we can also improve the environment, because there's it's proven

656
00:34:10,040 --> 00:34:16,040
Speaker 1: that you know, good soil and and and farmland secretes

657
00:34:16,360 --> 00:34:19,560
Speaker 1: carbon out of the environment, you know, and and and

658
00:34:20,080 --> 00:34:22,880
Speaker 1: blocks it locks it, yeah, blocks it, and and it

659
00:34:22,920 --> 00:34:24,520
Speaker 1: locks it in the ground. Yeah, and locks it into

660
00:34:24,560 --> 00:34:27,120
Speaker 1: the ground, just like the ocean does, and seaweed and

661
00:34:27,160 --> 00:34:29,719
Speaker 1: all those sort of things. So so I don't think,

662
00:34:31,000 --> 00:34:33,439
Speaker 1: you know, you can't be sort of you can't say

663
00:34:33,480 --> 00:34:37,239
Speaker 1: that one thing's there's no silver bullet. You know, it's

664
00:34:37,280 --> 00:34:39,359
Speaker 1: a combination of a lot of things that I think,

665
00:34:39,400 --> 00:34:43,640
Speaker 1: I think are going to feed the world in a sustainable, healthy,

666
00:34:44,000 --> 00:34:47,600
Speaker 1: long term way and preserve what's happening in the environment.

667
00:34:47,960 --> 00:34:50,399
Speaker 2: And that's a good balanced way of looking at it.

668
00:34:50,480 --> 00:34:53,600
Speaker 2: So I mean, as a businessman, do you you and

669
00:34:53,640 --> 00:34:56,040
Speaker 2: your father or your family members have to sit down

670
00:34:56,120 --> 00:34:59,240
Speaker 2: and sort of say, what's the prognosis for our industry

671
00:34:59,320 --> 00:35:02,280
Speaker 2: as as a commercial prognosis, you know, like that people

672
00:35:02,800 --> 00:35:05,800
Speaker 2: will continue to buy meat, our meat, your meat in particular,

673
00:35:07,120 --> 00:35:08,879
Speaker 2: do you have to start to pivot around these things,

674
00:35:08,880 --> 00:35:10,880
Speaker 2: because you know, you pivoted back in the night is

675
00:35:10,920 --> 00:35:13,880
Speaker 2: by becoming a supply because retail wasn't working because of

676
00:35:13,960 --> 00:35:19,040
Speaker 2: the geography you or your location. I should say, do

677
00:35:19,080 --> 00:35:21,839
Speaker 2: you see a time at which someone like vix Meats

678
00:35:21,920 --> 00:35:26,920
Speaker 2: might start to even look at alternatives to meet and

679
00:35:27,280 --> 00:35:29,160
Speaker 2: being a supply of alternatives to meet? I mean, is

680
00:35:29,200 --> 00:35:31,040
Speaker 2: that something you would never do or do you just

681
00:35:31,680 --> 00:35:32,480
Speaker 2: or you would consider.

682
00:35:33,280 --> 00:35:35,960
Speaker 1: There's a few things that we've you know, we're open to.

683
00:35:36,280 --> 00:35:38,880
Speaker 1: You know, as a business, we have to continue to

684
00:35:38,920 --> 00:35:41,839
Speaker 1: sort of evolve. We need to be mindful of what's

685
00:35:41,880 --> 00:35:45,839
Speaker 1: happening in terms of trends, so we're always looking at

686
00:35:45,960 --> 00:35:50,240
Speaker 1: many things. We want to remain relevant as a business.

687
00:35:50,520 --> 00:35:54,680
Speaker 1: We want to keep going into the future. But but

688
00:35:55,000 --> 00:35:58,960
Speaker 1: if I can just mention something quickly, to his credit,

689
00:35:59,360 --> 00:36:02,040
Speaker 1: I think my father did a remarkable job of future

690
00:36:02,080 --> 00:36:07,759
Speaker 1: proofing our business in the very very early days, in

691
00:36:07,800 --> 00:36:09,839
Speaker 1: the formative days of our business. And what I mean

692
00:36:09,880 --> 00:36:12,400
Speaker 1: by that is my father. He won't take offense to this.

693
00:36:12,480 --> 00:36:14,640
Speaker 1: My father's not an educated man. He never went to school,

694
00:36:14,880 --> 00:36:17,319
Speaker 1: you know. He school wasn't for him and all that

695
00:36:17,360 --> 00:36:21,120
Speaker 1: sort of stuff. But to his credit, somehow he was

696
00:36:21,160 --> 00:36:24,600
Speaker 1: able to sort of future proof our business. And what

697
00:36:24,640 --> 00:36:26,760
Speaker 1: I mean by that was, I remember when I first

698
00:36:26,840 --> 00:36:29,200
Speaker 1: started and the first day that I started working with

699
00:36:29,200 --> 00:36:33,160
Speaker 1: my father, he told me about the philosophy that's fundamentally

700
00:36:33,239 --> 00:36:38,359
Speaker 1: sort of bound our family of butchers over the last

701
00:36:38,360 --> 00:36:41,920
Speaker 1: sort of four or five generations, and that was that

702
00:36:42,000 --> 00:36:44,960
Speaker 1: as butchers, the ultimate respect that we can show on animals,

703
00:36:45,000 --> 00:36:47,280
Speaker 1: so ultimately, as butcher's we're taking the life of the animal.

704
00:36:47,520 --> 00:36:50,960
Speaker 1: You know, there's no way around that, okay, but the

705
00:36:51,040 --> 00:36:53,480
Speaker 1: ultimate respect that we can show that animal is to

706
00:36:53,560 --> 00:36:56,600
Speaker 1: use every single part of it, okay, not to waste

707
00:36:56,640 --> 00:36:59,880
Speaker 1: any of it. So in terms of being conscious and

708
00:37:00,400 --> 00:37:04,080
Speaker 1: you know, the environment and not and and utilizing everything

709
00:37:04,120 --> 00:37:07,080
Speaker 1: and being sustainable or whatever, my father sort of set

710
00:37:07,640 --> 00:37:10,880
Speaker 1: that that stepping stone in place very early on. So

711
00:37:10,960 --> 00:37:14,319
Speaker 1: as a business, we've been obsessed with making sure that

712
00:37:14,360 --> 00:37:16,360
Speaker 1: we use every single part of the animal, that we

713
00:37:16,400 --> 00:37:19,400
Speaker 1: don't waste it, that we educate our customers in and

714
00:37:19,400 --> 00:37:22,279
Speaker 1: around that there's more to the animal than sort of

715
00:37:22,280 --> 00:37:24,839
Speaker 1: tea bone, scotch field at sirloin and all the sort

716
00:37:24,880 --> 00:37:28,240
Speaker 1: of popular cuts, you know. And we've worked with chefs

717
00:37:28,239 --> 00:37:30,600
Speaker 1: to sort of put all of these what are considered

718
00:37:30,600 --> 00:37:34,799
Speaker 1: to be secondary cuts on menus, to sort of embrace them,

719
00:37:34,880 --> 00:37:36,839
Speaker 1: to celebrate them all that sort of stuff. So that's

720
00:37:36,920 --> 00:37:39,640
Speaker 1: one example of how we continue to sort of drive

721
00:37:39,680 --> 00:37:43,719
Speaker 1: our business forward, remain relevant, and do our bit in

722
00:37:43,800 --> 00:37:47,240
Speaker 1: terms of respecting the craft, the industry, the mean industry

723
00:37:47,239 --> 00:37:51,520
Speaker 1: as a whole protein. You know, look, we're good butchers.

724
00:37:52,560 --> 00:37:57,600
Speaker 1: I don't see ourselves going into into seafood, you know,

725
00:37:57,920 --> 00:38:01,319
Speaker 1: I see that as as a special in itself. I

726
00:38:01,360 --> 00:38:03,439
Speaker 1: think we need to stick to what we're good at.

727
00:38:04,600 --> 00:38:06,960
Speaker 1: We need to sort of be mindful of what's out there,

728
00:38:07,080 --> 00:38:10,560
Speaker 1: We need to investigate. I had conversations with Beyond and

729
00:38:10,640 --> 00:38:16,280
Speaker 1: Impossible Meats, you know, in the late sort of twenty eighteen's,

730
00:38:16,400 --> 00:38:18,799
Speaker 1: you know, seventeens or whatever, and now all that sort

731
00:38:18,800 --> 00:38:21,400
Speaker 1: of happened, and I just wasn't convinced that that was

732
00:38:21,440 --> 00:38:24,640
Speaker 1: the right solution for our business. You know, when you

733
00:38:24,680 --> 00:38:26,719
Speaker 1: looked at a packet of their product and you looked

734
00:38:26,719 --> 00:38:29,799
Speaker 1: at all the ingredients, you couldn't recognize. You needed a

735
00:38:29,840 --> 00:38:32,400
Speaker 1: science degree to be able to recognize. You didn't recognize

736
00:38:32,480 --> 00:38:35,359
Speaker 1: ninety percent of those ingredients. Whereas you look at meat,

737
00:38:35,440 --> 00:38:38,879
Speaker 1: traditional meat, and for me, real is real traditional meat.

738
00:38:39,200 --> 00:38:41,480
Speaker 1: You know, what are the ingredients? It's meat, you know,

739
00:38:41,520 --> 00:38:45,319
Speaker 1: it's grass, it's the sun, it's water. You know, it's

740
00:38:45,360 --> 00:38:49,280
Speaker 1: all natural ingredients that go into producing and raising that product,

741
00:38:50,160 --> 00:38:52,680
Speaker 1: and that's got to be good for you. So we're

742
00:38:52,719 --> 00:38:58,359
Speaker 1: always looking at things trying to evolve, stay ahead. We're

743
00:38:58,360 --> 00:39:00,560
Speaker 1: considered a bit of a market leader in terms of

744
00:39:00,560 --> 00:39:02,640
Speaker 1: what we do within our space. The rest of the

745
00:39:02,680 --> 00:39:04,719
Speaker 1: world sort of looks at our business in terms of,

746
00:39:05,080 --> 00:39:07,080
Speaker 1: you know, what we're doing to sort of continue to

747
00:39:07,080 --> 00:39:10,399
Speaker 1: sort of evolve, grow, diversify all of those sort of things.

748
00:39:10,560 --> 00:39:13,359
Speaker 2: With a lesson before other business owners who are listening

749
00:39:13,400 --> 00:39:16,719
Speaker 2: to this podcast is the lesson that you've got out

750
00:39:16,760 --> 00:39:22,200
Speaker 2: of this is sure, always be open to changes. But

751
00:39:22,239 --> 00:39:24,640
Speaker 2: at the same time, if we're doing something well, stick

752
00:39:24,640 --> 00:39:25,680
Speaker 2: to our lane.

753
00:39:25,480 --> 00:39:30,200
Speaker 1: Totally and that that's in a nutshell how we sort

754
00:39:30,200 --> 00:39:32,120
Speaker 1: of look at our business. You know, we know what

755
00:39:32,160 --> 00:39:36,080
Speaker 1: we're good at. We stick to that. However, we are

756
00:39:36,120 --> 00:39:40,160
Speaker 1: respectful that, you know, there's options out there, There's different

757
00:39:40,160 --> 00:39:42,399
Speaker 1: things happening, So we've got one eye on what's sort

758
00:39:42,400 --> 00:39:44,879
Speaker 1: of happening out there also, and there might be bits

759
00:39:44,920 --> 00:39:48,360
Speaker 1: of it that we sort of embrace pull into our business.

760
00:39:49,719 --> 00:39:52,200
Speaker 1: But I think it's about sticking to what you're good at.

761
00:39:52,360 --> 00:39:56,640
Speaker 2: So got stuck in a whole lot of different things

762
00:39:56,640 --> 00:39:59,719
Speaker 2: areas just in terms of vix mes. Now, so just

763
00:39:59,760 --> 00:40:03,400
Speaker 2: give a bit of a thumbnail sketch of how do

764
00:40:03,520 --> 00:40:06,320
Speaker 2: you are what you do? So I have seen your

765
00:40:07,000 --> 00:40:09,840
Speaker 2: one of your outlets at the fish markets, which is

766
00:40:09,880 --> 00:40:14,160
Speaker 2: you're selling meat that I know. You've got Churchills in

767
00:40:14,280 --> 00:40:19,399
Speaker 2: Wollaro which is very famous shelf front, very very cool

768
00:40:19,440 --> 00:40:23,080
Speaker 2: to go in there. There is a story about Anthony Bourdain.

769
00:40:23,200 --> 00:40:24,680
Speaker 2: He said something about it. Maybe you could tell us

770
00:40:24,680 --> 00:40:27,919
Speaker 2: about that. Well, it gives a thumbnail sketch of what

771
00:40:28,000 --> 00:40:29,240
Speaker 2: you do now like your.

772
00:40:29,080 --> 00:40:34,040
Speaker 1: Group, Yeah, sure, at its heart, our core business, our

773
00:40:34,080 --> 00:40:37,560
Speaker 1: main business, our bread and butter. What we've been able

774
00:40:37,600 --> 00:40:43,799
Speaker 1: to sort of carve out this phenomenal successful reputation out

775
00:40:43,800 --> 00:40:47,279
Speaker 1: of is wholesaling meat, supplying the best chefs and the

776
00:40:47,320 --> 00:40:51,279
Speaker 1: best restaurants and the best venues in the country. That's

777
00:40:51,280 --> 00:40:54,040
Speaker 1: how we built our business. That's how we built our

778
00:40:54,080 --> 00:40:59,640
Speaker 1: reputation pre COVID. And this is a bit of an

779
00:40:59,680 --> 00:41:02,719
Speaker 1: interest in fact, because there's been you know, we've had

780
00:41:02,760 --> 00:41:05,759
Speaker 1: to pivot again as a business post COVID, but pre

781
00:41:05,920 --> 00:41:08,880
Speaker 1: COVID ninety five percent of our you know, we had

782
00:41:08,880 --> 00:41:11,360
Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty million dollar business, employing one hundred

783
00:41:11,360 --> 00:41:16,640
Speaker 1: and twenty staff, supplying six hundred restaurants across the seaboard

784
00:41:16,719 --> 00:41:21,720
Speaker 1: of Australia, so a significant sized business. Ninety five percent

785
00:41:21,760 --> 00:41:25,720
Speaker 1: of our revenue and eighty percent of our profit came

786
00:41:25,800 --> 00:41:28,880
Speaker 1: from that. That that whole saling side of our business.

787
00:41:29,080 --> 00:41:34,759
Speaker 1: Restaurants to restaurants, airlines, Quantas, Crown, the Star, all the

788
00:41:34,840 --> 00:41:39,360
Speaker 1: major five star hotels, the Park, Hied, the Hilton, you know,

789
00:41:39,600 --> 00:41:43,320
Speaker 1: you name it, all the best chefs and restaurants in

790
00:41:43,400 --> 00:41:47,320
Speaker 1: the country. That that that's that that's our core business

791
00:41:47,360 --> 00:41:52,520
Speaker 1: and remains our core business. We then opened up Victor

792
00:41:52,600 --> 00:41:56,000
Speaker 1: Churchill in two thousand and nine in Oxfordshire, in sorry

793
00:41:56,000 --> 00:42:02,360
Speaker 1: in Queen Street in Mallara. Are very ambitious, a very ambitious,

794
00:42:02,520 --> 00:42:08,200
Speaker 1: high end bespoke retail meat experience. I might add that

795
00:42:08,239 --> 00:42:12,560
Speaker 1: we opened it during the GFC or you know, when

796
00:42:12,600 --> 00:42:15,359
Speaker 1: the world was in meltdown and the banking industries in mental,

797
00:42:15,520 --> 00:42:19,239
Speaker 1: so a very difficult sort of period and time, and

798
00:42:19,280 --> 00:42:21,919
Speaker 1: we were aping up the most expensive butcher shop that's

799
00:42:21,920 --> 00:42:24,799
Speaker 1: ever been built in the world, and that's gone on

800
00:42:24,840 --> 00:42:30,280
Speaker 1: to phenomenal success. Yes, Anthony Bourdain Oprah Winfrey, who Jackman,

801
00:42:30,320 --> 00:42:33,040
Speaker 1: you name it. It's been a bit of a destination

802
00:42:33,239 --> 00:42:35,520
Speaker 1: for people to sort of come and visit and come

803
00:42:35,560 --> 00:42:40,160
Speaker 1: and have a look at. Anthony Bordein famously referred to

804
00:42:40,239 --> 00:42:42,640
Speaker 1: it as the best and the most beautiful butcher shop

805
00:42:42,640 --> 00:42:48,040
Speaker 1: in the world. Very humbling. We then to throw a

806
00:42:48,080 --> 00:42:51,400
Speaker 1: cat amongst the pigeons or a tea ban amongst the salmon.

807
00:42:52,760 --> 00:42:56,239
Speaker 1: Ten years ago we opened up a VIX branded a

808
00:42:56,280 --> 00:42:58,640
Speaker 1: Vix Meat branded retail store at the Sydney Fish Market,

809
00:42:58,719 --> 00:43:02,840
Speaker 1: so the biggest fish markets in the Southern Hemisphere in

810
00:43:03,800 --> 00:43:08,279
Speaker 1: redness for the major redevelopment of that. But despite those

811
00:43:08,320 --> 00:43:12,080
Speaker 1: two quite successful stores pre COVID, they still made up

812
00:43:12,120 --> 00:43:16,839
Speaker 1: a small percentage of our overall business. Then COVID hit

813
00:43:18,440 --> 00:43:23,760
Speaker 1: and percent my revenue came from wholesaling, to restaurants, to cafes,

814
00:43:23,800 --> 00:43:27,279
Speaker 1: to hotels and airlines. When COVID hit and all of

815
00:43:27,320 --> 00:43:31,360
Speaker 1: those places were forced to close, I literally Mark watched

816
00:43:31,360 --> 00:43:33,880
Speaker 1: my business okay, and one hundred and twenty million dollars

817
00:43:33,920 --> 00:43:38,560
Speaker 1: of revenue. I saw it fall off a cliff, you know, overnight.

818
00:43:41,400 --> 00:43:43,360
Speaker 1: But like I alluded to earlier, there's a lot of

819
00:43:43,360 --> 00:43:47,359
Speaker 1: fight in our business. And in our family, we never

820
00:43:47,440 --> 00:43:53,319
Speaker 1: go down without a fight, without throwing punches, whether we're

821
00:43:53,320 --> 00:43:59,359
Speaker 1: winning or losing. And our pivot our way of digging ourselves.

822
00:43:59,440 --> 00:44:01,959
Speaker 1: We had five or six million dollars worth of meat

823
00:44:02,040 --> 00:44:06,680
Speaker 1: sitting in our warehouse, in our core room. We had

824
00:44:06,719 --> 00:44:10,719
Speaker 1: another six or seven million dollars of debtors so you know,

825
00:44:10,760 --> 00:44:14,320
Speaker 1: twelve new money, yeah, twelve thirty million dollars worth of

826
00:44:14,400 --> 00:44:17,040
Speaker 1: working capital that was just tied up in our business,

827
00:44:17,080 --> 00:44:20,600
Speaker 1: that was just sitting there, not moving, not going anywhere.

828
00:44:21,000 --> 00:44:25,799
Speaker 1: And our pivot was like most businesses, into online. We'd

829
00:44:25,840 --> 00:44:29,440
Speaker 1: never had any experience with online business at that point,

830
00:44:30,680 --> 00:44:32,880
Speaker 1: didn't know how to do it, didn't know where to start.

831
00:44:33,239 --> 00:44:35,840
Speaker 1: But once again, when you got don't know many choices,

832
00:44:36,200 --> 00:44:41,560
Speaker 1: it's amazing how resourceful you can be. And on the

833
00:44:41,560 --> 00:44:44,720
Speaker 1: first of April, on April Fool's Day of twenty twenty,

834
00:44:45,360 --> 00:44:49,279
Speaker 1: we launched vix Meat Direct, which was a online home

835
00:44:49,360 --> 00:44:54,399
Speaker 1: delivery business to people's homes, delivering the finest quality meat

836
00:44:55,040 --> 00:44:57,560
Speaker 1: in Australia, the sort of meat that was destined to

837
00:44:57,600 --> 00:45:01,400
Speaker 1: the best chefs and the best restaurants. We were delivering

838
00:45:01,440 --> 00:45:05,759
Speaker 1: it to people's doorsteps. Obviously, people were at home. They

839
00:45:05,760 --> 00:45:07,799
Speaker 1: were locked up, they couldn't.

840
00:45:07,520 --> 00:45:09,160
Speaker 2: Go out, and they prepared to spend a bit more

841
00:45:09,200 --> 00:45:11,560
Speaker 2: that yeah, exactly to spoil themselves.

842
00:45:11,640 --> 00:45:14,000
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, and I was spoiling themselves out, and why

843
00:45:14,040 --> 00:45:15,719
Speaker 1: wouldn't they you know, it was a horrible time that

844
00:45:15,760 --> 00:45:21,360
Speaker 1: we were all going through and and he went game busters.

845
00:45:22,239 --> 00:45:26,399
Speaker 1: We've done to date, so sort of what is it now?

846
00:45:26,520 --> 00:45:28,840
Speaker 1: Sort of four years on, we've done fifty five million

847
00:45:28,880 --> 00:45:31,400
Speaker 1: dollars worth of sales just through that one and that

848
00:45:31,480 --> 00:45:34,960
Speaker 1: business still going business delivery business. And this is a

849
00:45:35,000 --> 00:45:37,560
Speaker 1: real something, a really proud moment for me in the

850
00:45:37,600 --> 00:45:43,040
Speaker 1: business that sales channel while it was a survival strategy, strategy,

851
00:45:43,080 --> 00:45:46,120
Speaker 1: while it was something to keep our staff employed and

852
00:45:46,200 --> 00:45:50,040
Speaker 1: in jobs in an effort to sort of get some

853
00:45:50,280 --> 00:45:53,560
Speaker 1: cash going through the business, converting this stock into cash,

854
00:45:54,080 --> 00:45:58,400
Speaker 1: keeping our staff in jobs and just paying the bills.

855
00:45:59,320 --> 00:46:04,920
Speaker 1: That that's else. Channel remains part of our business to

856
00:46:04,960 --> 00:46:08,080
Speaker 1: this day. So what it's done, it's given given a

857
00:46:08,120 --> 00:46:10,960
Speaker 1: new business. Yeah, and it's given us. It's you know

858
00:46:11,040 --> 00:46:15,319
Speaker 1: the analogy that I use, you know, pre covid. You know,

859
00:46:15,400 --> 00:46:18,040
Speaker 1: we were a stool with one leg. Okay, The bulk

860
00:46:18,080 --> 00:46:21,640
Speaker 1: of our business was was was wholesaling, okay, so there

861
00:46:21,680 --> 00:46:23,759
Speaker 1: was a bit of stability, but we were still with

862
00:46:23,800 --> 00:46:28,319
Speaker 1: one leg. Okay. Subsequently, we've we've opened up bricks and

863
00:46:28,320 --> 00:46:31,800
Speaker 1: water retail stores, so we've got another leg to our stool. Okay,

864
00:46:31,880 --> 00:46:36,400
Speaker 1: so a little bit more stable. Okay. Now with this

865
00:46:36,480 --> 00:46:39,640
Speaker 1: online business, we've got our third leg to our stool.

866
00:46:39,719 --> 00:46:42,920
Speaker 1: You know. So there's there's there's diversity to our business.

867
00:46:43,000 --> 00:46:46,520
Speaker 1: There stability to our business, there's strength to our business.

868
00:46:48,160 --> 00:46:54,280
Speaker 1: And and it's amazing what adversity. It's amazing what hard

869
00:46:54,400 --> 00:46:58,960
Speaker 1: times are able to sort of you know, as that

870
00:46:59,080 --> 00:47:02,680
Speaker 1: saying goes, pressure creates diamonds, right, you know. And a

871
00:47:02,719 --> 00:47:06,320
Speaker 1: lot of people, you know, panic, a lot of people

872
00:47:06,440 --> 00:47:09,400
Speaker 1: give up, a lot of people lose hope. It's easy

873
00:47:09,440 --> 00:47:11,040
Speaker 1: to give up, right you know what I mean? Well,

874
00:47:11,080 --> 00:47:12,759
Speaker 1: why didn't you give up? Though? Won't you tell me?

875
00:47:12,800 --> 00:47:15,839
Speaker 2: What is it that makes you not give up?

876
00:47:16,360 --> 00:47:20,720
Speaker 1: I just that's one thing that I can't explain. There's

877
00:47:20,800 --> 00:47:26,040
Speaker 1: this desire within me. It might be pride, okay, which

878
00:47:26,360 --> 00:47:32,000
Speaker 1: sometimes can be borderline arrogance. Okay, it's a bit of

879
00:47:32,000 --> 00:47:35,920
Speaker 1: a fine line between pride and arrogance. I do my

880
00:47:36,000 --> 00:47:39,240
Speaker 1: best to stay on the pride side of that line,

881
00:47:39,280 --> 00:47:45,080
Speaker 1: you know. But I think it's pride, it's that determination,

882
00:47:45,440 --> 00:47:48,040
Speaker 1: it's that passion, it's that love, it's that never give

883
00:47:49,600 --> 00:47:54,200
Speaker 1: give up attitude. I suppose I'm deeply respectful of, you know,

884
00:47:54,680 --> 00:47:58,360
Speaker 1: my family history and the toil and the struggle. You know,

885
00:47:58,440 --> 00:48:01,239
Speaker 1: my father came to this country like most migrants. This

886
00:48:01,400 --> 00:48:04,040
Speaker 1: story isn't unique to me, Mark, you know, will resonate

887
00:48:04,080 --> 00:48:06,920
Speaker 1: with a lot of migrants. My father came to this

888
00:48:06,960 --> 00:48:09,400
Speaker 1: country in the late sixties at the age of seventeen.

889
00:48:09,520 --> 00:48:11,720
Speaker 1: You know. He was on a boat for three months.

890
00:48:11,719 --> 00:48:13,800
Speaker 1: You know, I didn't know the language, you know, I

891
00:48:13,880 --> 00:48:16,919
Speaker 1: didn't know anyone here. Literally the shirt on his back

892
00:48:16,920 --> 00:48:21,520
Speaker 1: and one suitcase, you know, no education, and he just

893
00:48:21,560 --> 00:48:25,920
Speaker 1: put his head down and he worked and he built something,

894
00:48:26,000 --> 00:48:30,040
Speaker 1: you know. And I think it's that that that keeps

895
00:48:30,040 --> 00:48:32,239
Speaker 1: me sort of motivated and going, you know, because it's

896
00:48:32,280 --> 00:48:34,759
Speaker 1: easy to say everyone has their moments. I have my

897
00:48:34,840 --> 00:48:36,960
Speaker 1: bad days, and it's easy to sort of give up.

898
00:48:37,200 --> 00:48:39,759
Speaker 1: It's easier not to put the work in. It's easy

899
00:48:39,840 --> 00:48:41,759
Speaker 1: to sort of pack up your bags and go home

900
00:48:41,800 --> 00:48:43,879
Speaker 1: an hour earlier, all that sort of stuff. But it's

901
00:48:43,920 --> 00:48:49,000
Speaker 1: just yeah, just I suppose yeah, pride and and and

902
00:48:49,120 --> 00:48:52,840
Speaker 1: just not giving in and just always fighting. And final

903
00:48:52,920 --> 00:48:55,799
Speaker 1: question for him, mate, where do from here? What's next?

904
00:48:55,840 --> 00:48:57,239
Speaker 1: Anything next? You're going to go and launch in the

905
00:48:57,360 --> 00:49:00,680
Speaker 1: US or euribles? I did that that we didn't have

906
00:49:00,719 --> 00:49:02,640
Speaker 1: a chance to sort of talk about that in depth.

907
00:49:02,680 --> 00:49:07,880
Speaker 1: But as many successes as I've had in my career,

908
00:49:07,880 --> 00:49:10,359
Speaker 1: in my life, I've had my fair share of failures too.

909
00:49:10,400 --> 00:49:13,400
Speaker 1: And in two thousand and five, twenty years ago, I

910
00:49:13,480 --> 00:49:16,160
Speaker 1: launched a vix meat business in Shanghai. You know, most

911
00:49:16,200 --> 00:49:18,400
Speaker 1: people didn't know where China was on a map, you know,

912
00:49:18,960 --> 00:49:23,080
Speaker 1: I know it's become this global powerhouse and a big

913
00:49:23,440 --> 00:49:27,440
Speaker 1: trade partner for Australia now and really important to Australia

914
00:49:27,480 --> 00:49:29,160
Speaker 1: and our economy and all that sort of stuff in

915
00:49:29,200 --> 00:49:32,080
Speaker 1: the world economy. But in two thousand and five, I

916
00:49:32,120 --> 00:49:34,520
Speaker 1: opened up a start of the art two thousand square

917
00:49:34,560 --> 00:49:39,239
Speaker 1: meet a facility in Shanghai to sort of import, you know,

918
00:49:39,480 --> 00:49:44,560
Speaker 1: this high quality chilled Australian meat and supply as many

919
00:49:45,120 --> 00:49:50,200
Speaker 1: of the Chinese emerging, growing affluent Chinese as possible. And

920
00:49:50,239 --> 00:49:53,120
Speaker 1: then that wasn't enough for me. In February two thousand

921
00:49:53,120 --> 00:49:55,680
Speaker 1: and six, I opened up a facility in Singapore. I

922
00:49:55,719 --> 00:49:58,120
Speaker 1: really wanted to sort of play in that sort of

923
00:49:58,120 --> 00:50:01,440
Speaker 1: South East Asia Asian sort of marketplace, you know. And

924
00:50:02,000 --> 00:50:05,759
Speaker 1: by two thousand and eight I closed. I'll closed, you know,

925
00:50:05,920 --> 00:50:08,839
Speaker 1: and I felt fat, fell flat on my face. It

926
00:50:08,880 --> 00:50:11,560
Speaker 1: was my first ever big failure, you know. So I've

927
00:50:11,600 --> 00:50:16,319
Speaker 1: done that whole overseas thing. Where to now. Look, you know,

928
00:50:16,920 --> 00:50:20,839
Speaker 1: I'm fifty one years of age. I'm getting on a bit.

929
00:50:20,880 --> 00:50:23,440
Speaker 1: I'm still young. I still feel good. I still have

930
00:50:23,640 --> 00:50:27,719
Speaker 1: a lot to give and contribute. I still have a

931
00:50:27,719 --> 00:50:30,719
Speaker 1: lot of fight and a lot of energy. But I'm

932
00:50:30,719 --> 00:50:33,239
Speaker 1: not thirty years old. I'm not twenty years old. I'm

933
00:50:33,239 --> 00:50:37,000
Speaker 1: not forty years old anymore. I'm a lot more strategic nowadays.

934
00:50:37,000 --> 00:50:38,960
Speaker 1: I still want to grow. I still want to give

935
00:50:39,120 --> 00:50:42,480
Speaker 1: opportunities to people within our business to grow and develop

936
00:50:43,160 --> 00:50:46,719
Speaker 1: and experience things that I've been fortunate enough to experience.

937
00:50:48,400 --> 00:50:53,799
Speaker 1: We're continuing to sort of build out our bricks and

938
00:50:53,800 --> 00:50:58,080
Speaker 1: water retail sort of footprints. So we opened up recently

939
00:50:58,560 --> 00:51:02,000
Speaker 1: a vix Stora or Chase. We're opening up in August

940
00:51:02,120 --> 00:51:07,800
Speaker 1: at Bonni Junction. We've got our first vis retail store

941
00:51:07,840 --> 00:51:11,400
Speaker 1: planned for Melbourne. That'll open at Chasten at the beginning

942
00:51:11,440 --> 00:51:14,000
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty five, on the back of opening up

943
00:51:14,040 --> 00:51:19,680
Speaker 1: Victor Churchill in Melbourne two years ago. So yeah, I

944
00:51:19,719 --> 00:51:25,319
Speaker 1: still love what I do. I still see opportunities and

945
00:51:25,360 --> 00:51:27,839
Speaker 1: I want to keep going. I want to keep this

946
00:51:28,040 --> 00:51:32,080
Speaker 1: legacy going. My daughter works in the business, my oldest

947
00:51:32,080 --> 00:51:35,680
Speaker 1: son works in the business, so hopefully I can provide

948
00:51:35,680 --> 00:51:39,080
Speaker 1: them a bit of a platform and an opportunity to

949
00:51:39,120 --> 00:51:42,200
Speaker 1: feel the same sense of pride that I've felt over

950
00:51:42,239 --> 00:51:46,160
Speaker 1: the last thirty years owning and operating my family business

951
00:51:46,239 --> 00:51:53,319
Speaker 1: and growing that servicing customers with humility, humbleness, and never

952
00:51:53,440 --> 00:51:59,080
Speaker 1: wavering from from this commitment that my father made, that

953
00:51:59,200 --> 00:52:04,240
Speaker 1: I inherited to quality, where the whole family is obsessed

954
00:52:04,280 --> 00:52:08,680
Speaker 1: with quality, you know. And hopefully my kids are able

955
00:52:08,719 --> 00:52:11,880
Speaker 1: to sort of inherit that that passion and that pride

956
00:52:11,880 --> 00:52:14,600
Speaker 1: for what we do and continue on and I'm able

957
00:52:14,640 --> 00:52:17,239
Speaker 1: to sort of guide them, mentor them just like my

958
00:52:17,280 --> 00:52:18,600
Speaker 1: father did with me. You know.

959
00:52:19,920 --> 00:52:22,040
Speaker 2: Well, I think I think that's amazing and it's amazing

960
00:52:22,080 --> 00:52:24,520
Speaker 2: story that you've done so well. It's not that really

961
00:52:24,560 --> 00:52:26,120
Speaker 2: that long a period that you've been doing. If it

962
00:52:26,160 --> 00:52:30,120
Speaker 2: was only like twenty five thirty years or something, and

963
00:52:30,239 --> 00:52:34,440
Speaker 2: you are a significant footprint on the Australian let's call

964
00:52:34,480 --> 00:52:38,800
Speaker 2: it wholesome meat industry, the wholesome meat industry.

965
00:52:39,200 --> 00:52:46,280
Speaker 1: So, Anthony pull you did well when you're first courage

966
00:52:46,640 --> 00:52:49,080
Speaker 1: pahrich Horidge. So we'll later that.

967
00:52:49,360 --> 00:52:53,440
Speaker 2: So Anthony Pharridge and founder along with your dad of

968
00:52:53,680 --> 00:52:57,560
Speaker 2: Vixed Meats, thanks very much for coming in today. Just

969
00:52:57,640 --> 00:52:59,680
Speaker 2: one last thing, you know, the thing I just got

970
00:52:59,719 --> 00:53:03,120
Speaker 2: out of this whole conversation. Sure, you try different things,

971
00:53:03,800 --> 00:53:06,200
Speaker 2: and sometimes you file you're prepared to fail in your case,

972
00:53:06,680 --> 00:53:09,160
Speaker 2: and all businesses are the same. But at the end

973
00:53:09,200 --> 00:53:11,800
Speaker 2: of the day, if you know what you're doing is

974
00:53:12,320 --> 00:53:14,960
Speaker 2: going well and it is a correct and a good

975
00:53:15,000 --> 00:53:19,880
Speaker 2: outcome for both customers and yourself and largely just generally,

976
00:53:20,719 --> 00:53:23,560
Speaker 2: then stick to your lane and be prepared, be happy

977
00:53:23,680 --> 00:53:25,040
Speaker 2: enough to build on that.

978
00:53:25,360 --> 00:53:25,560
Speaker 1: Yeah.

979
00:53:25,840 --> 00:53:29,640
Speaker 2: Just keep building, Just keep building, keep building. You don't

980
00:53:29,680 --> 00:53:31,640
Speaker 2: have to take over the world.

981
00:53:31,840 --> 00:53:35,240
Speaker 1: Yeah. And there is a temptation there when you enjoy success,

982
00:53:35,280 --> 00:53:37,080
Speaker 1: and I'm sure you've seen this in your own career.

983
00:53:37,080 --> 00:53:40,160
Speaker 1: When you enjoy your success, you think you can apply

984
00:53:40,239 --> 00:53:43,120
Speaker 1: that success to other industry ruggles. They say, yeah, all

985
00:53:43,160 --> 00:53:46,280
Speaker 1: that sort of stuff. You know, and success is a drug,

986
00:53:46,320 --> 00:53:48,600
Speaker 1: you know, and when you're doing well, you know, you

987
00:53:48,680 --> 00:53:53,319
Speaker 1: feed off that and sometimes it can lead you astray. Yeah,

988
00:53:52,800 --> 00:53:56,640
Speaker 1: and remembering how you started, remembering what you're good at,

989
00:53:56,760 --> 00:54:00,640
Speaker 1: sticking to that, being happy and comfortable and content with

990
00:54:00,760 --> 00:54:04,880
Speaker 1: that is a bit of a skill and a learned skill. Yeah. Yeah,

991
00:54:04,920 --> 00:54:06,919
Speaker 1: thanks for mauch chnthen my pleasure. Thank you, Mark,