Speaker 1: Welcome to the Mentor. I'm Marke Boris Anthony Bariche. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the Mentor. Thank you very much. Mark. Nice to
Speaker 1: be here. And how good are we going? Oh? Really good.
Speaker 1: We've we're not meet now we're talking about we're talking
Speaker 1: about the Roosters. We've got a lot of things in common,
Speaker 1: one of them being the Roosters. Yeah, it's good to
Speaker 1: be a long you've been as a border for us.
Speaker 1: I think this year I've knocked up forty five years
Speaker 1: of supporting the Red, White and the Blue. I remember
Speaker 1: my father took me to my first game when I
Speaker 1: was like six or seven years old, back at the
Speaker 1: old Sydney Sports Ground. Yeah. He used to be called yep,
Speaker 1: and you know Russell Fairfax and Boba Riley and Muddy
Speaker 1: Girr and Ken Kerry Bostad and Kevin Hastings that you know,
Speaker 1: that sort of era and late seventies, early eighties. Yeah,
Speaker 1: late late seventies, early eighties. Yeah, And I wasn't as
Speaker 1: fascinated with the rugby as much as I was fascinated
Speaker 1: with the dry ice. So I remember, I remember my
Speaker 1: dad used to take me to the games, and back
Speaker 1: in those days there was dry ice and all that
Speaker 1: sort of stuff, and I'd sit on the grass and
Speaker 1: I'd sort of just be fascinated with with a with
Speaker 1: a dry ice, and the russ would score and then
Speaker 1: I'd sort of look at the game and chair a
Speaker 1: bit and whatever. But yeah, very typic a little kids.
Speaker 2: They all go around and especially in the six or
Speaker 2: seven years of age, they're all dean holes and while
Speaker 2: their parents are sort of getting either aggravated or extremely
Speaker 2: excited about the Russes winning. So just in context, So
Speaker 2: you're the CEO and founder of Vixed Meats, a very
Speaker 2: well known meat business.
Speaker 1: Let's call it meat purveyors. I don't know what the
Speaker 1: word is, supply wholesalers, retailers. Yeah, but you have a history.
Speaker 2: You're come from a family you told me your dad now,
Speaker 2: but you have a history of generational history of being
Speaker 2: in the butcher business.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that'd be right. Yeah, I'm I'm proudly I'm a
Speaker 1: fifth generation butcher. So you're actually like a butcher trade
Speaker 1: as a butcher. Yeah. Well, I never normally did my apprenticeship,
Speaker 1: but I learned under the best butcher in the world.
Speaker 1: Who's my father, right, who's proudly been a butcher and
Speaker 1: dedicated fifty five years of his life mark to the
Speaker 1: craft of butchery. A remarkable man, an incredible role model
Speaker 1: for me, a mentor. He's my father, he's my business partner,
Speaker 1: and he's still best parents. Yeah. Yeah, my father retired
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago, but you can't help himself.
Speaker 1: He's still he's still there, sort of looking over my shoulder.
Speaker 1: My sister and I now run the business. So yeah,
Speaker 1: butchery goes back many, many generations in our fans beyond
Speaker 1: your dad. Yeah, so his father, my great grandfather, my
Speaker 1: father's brothers a butcher's So my father has two older brothers.
Speaker 1: He's the youngest of seven. So literally butchery runs through
Speaker 1: Alvein's mark. And despite my best efforts, I should say
Speaker 1: my parents' best efforts, because actually my father, funnily enough,
Speaker 1: he didn't want me to follow in his footsteps. Like
Speaker 1: most migrants, so my background's creation my father, like all
Speaker 1: the great sort of immigrants that came to this country
Speaker 1: in the sort of sixties and seventies, my father, actually
Speaker 1: he didn't want me to follow in his footsteps. He
Speaker 1: wanted me to get an education, He wanted me to
Speaker 1: become a I don't know, accountant, lawyer. He wanted me
Speaker 1: to sort of pursue a white collar sort of career,
Speaker 1: a better life, you know. Butcher. Butcher is hard work,
Speaker 1: you know, very physical, you're on your feet, cold conditions.
Speaker 1: Wasn't a very respected and appreciated sort of profession. So
Speaker 1: my parents, like a lot of migrants, you know, sort
Speaker 1: of one of their kids to sort of go to school,
Speaker 1: finish school, university and sort of pursue a more professional
Speaker 1: sort of career. So I was the first person. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was quite amazing. I was the first person, both
Speaker 1: on my mother and my father's side, to ever go
Speaker 1: to university. So both on my mother and my father's
Speaker 1: side very blue collars sort of backgrounds. And so I
Speaker 1: went to university. I finished with a finance economics degree,
Speaker 1: and I went off and pursued a career in investment banking,
Speaker 1: and I went to work for a banker's trust back
Speaker 1: in those days, so we're talking sort of early nineties now,
Speaker 1: as a junior equities analyst. I'll never forget the first
Speaker 1: day that I went to work. I got dressed up
Speaker 1: in a suit and a tie, and my mom started
Speaker 1: to cry and I was like, oh God, what have
Speaker 1: I done something wrong? I have I put my retire wrong,
Speaker 1: I've got something I've dirted my jacket or whatever. But
Speaker 1: she was so proud. She'd never seen anybody on her
Speaker 1: side of the family ever sort of go to work
Speaker 1: in a suit and a tie. And so I pursued
Speaker 1: that career, and look, six or seven months into it,
Speaker 1: I loved what I was doing. Six or seven months
Speaker 1: into it, something didn't feel right, you know. And I
Speaker 1: remember coming home one afternoon because I was still living
Speaker 1: at home at that stage, and I said to my dad,
Speaker 1: I wanted to be a butcher. And at that stage,
Speaker 1: my father had been working he was an employee working
Speaker 1: for Andrew's Meat and which one Peter Peter. Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he'd been there for twenty five years, working with the
Speaker 1: Andrews family. And he was quite shocked. He was quite disappointed,
Speaker 1: and he said, no way, you know, look at you.
Speaker 1: You know, You've started on this amazing career all that
Speaker 1: sort of stuff. But look or wore him down. And
Speaker 1: six months later, so in February of nineteen ninety six,
Speaker 1: my father and I started our family business in Oxford
Speaker 1: Street in Darlinghurst, just around the corner here, and that's
Speaker 1: how vix Meat started, and that's how I entered the
Speaker 1: meat industry. And like they say, the apple obviously doesn't
Speaker 1: forll far from the tree, despite this sort of detour
Speaker 1: that I took. And I'm very grateful for my education
Speaker 1: and my background, and you know, the sort of six
Speaker 1: or seven months that I spent in investment banking. But
Speaker 1: you know, when you've got a family tradition, and when
Speaker 1: you've got somebody like my father who's dedicated his whole life,
Speaker 1: who's so passionate about butchery and meat and all that
Speaker 1: sort of stuff. Yeah, like they say, the apple obviously
Speaker 1: doesn't fall fart minitary, and I inevitably ended up following
Speaker 1: in his footsteps and continuing that sort of family tradition.
Speaker 2: It's interesting young people, boys and girls who go off
Speaker 2: because the family is largely, especially micro families largely try
Speaker 2: to influence them to be what the parents consider to
Speaker 2: be a better lifestyle, better than what the parents have.
Speaker 2: But the kids, it doesn't matter what the parents say,
Speaker 2: it's no matter what the parents do, and that I
Speaker 2: think influences all of us. So if you go back
Speaker 2: and when you're a little kid, not of the roosters,
Speaker 2: but a little kid watching your dad whilst you're at school.
Speaker 2: Of the things you remember about your dad as a butcher,
Speaker 2: like sort the things you saw. Nobody said, but the
Speaker 2: things you saw.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're so right about that. Yeah, there's definitely that.
Speaker 1: You know, my parents wanted me to go in a
Speaker 1: certain direction, but it was the things that I observed
Speaker 1: them doing that have lived with me to this day.
Speaker 1: And some of those things are work ethic. What does
Speaker 1: that mean to you? It means everything. You know. I
Speaker 1: watched my father get up at one o'clock every morning,
Speaker 1: as he has for the last fifty five years, were
Speaker 1: taking me through the lifestyle of a butcher. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: bloody tough. You know, early starts. Where does early start
Speaker 1: mean that? I mean my father, I mean and for
Speaker 1: a big part of my career. Also, I've been doing
Speaker 1: what I've been doing for thirty years. Mark, you're up
Speaker 1: at sort of one one thirty in the morning. Why
Speaker 1: your day starts at two two thirty in the morning,
Speaker 1: because you know that's when the deliveries come in. There's
Speaker 1: an expectation from our customers that their meat arrives at eight,
Speaker 1: nine o'clock in the morning. Our business is proudly supplied
Speaker 1: and delivered to the best chefs, the best restaurants, the
Speaker 1: best venues, the most well regarded chefs and restaurants in
Speaker 1: the country. And they've got very high expectations not only
Speaker 1: in terms of quality and consistency, but also service. And
Speaker 1: they're open for lunch a lot of these places, and
Speaker 1: they need to meet there early in order to be
Speaker 1: able to prepare it and get ready for lunch and
Speaker 1: dinner and all that sort of stuff. So in order
Speaker 1: to be able to fulfill those orders, in order to
Speaker 1: be able to fulfill them at a high standard, you
Speaker 1: need to start day really really early. You need to
Speaker 1: receive that meet in, you need to prepare it, pack it,
Speaker 1: deliver it, all that sort of stuff. So, yeah, your
Speaker 1: day starts a sort of two two thirty in the morning.
Speaker 1: It's not negotiable because if you don't start your day
Speaker 1: at that time in the morning, you just won't be
Speaker 1: able to sort of meet those expectations and get those
Speaker 1: deliveries out on time, all of those sort of things.
Speaker 1: That's the life of a butcher, and most butchers, and
Speaker 1: even in meat retailing, most butchers start their morning or
Speaker 1: start their day at sort of five or six o'clock
Speaker 1: in the morning. It's a little bit more civil in retail, okay,
Speaker 1: but it's retail being like a shop front. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: a shopfront, like your local neighborhood sort of butcher shop.
Speaker 1: So your day starts really all early, whether you're wholesaling
Speaker 1: or retailing. So that work ethic, that ability to be
Speaker 1: able to you know, be disciplined enough, be motivated enough
Speaker 1: to get your us out of bed at that time
Speaker 1: of the morning, rain, haler shine, whether it's sort of
Speaker 1: five degrees outside, whether it's you know, fifteen degrees outside,
Speaker 1: whether it's raining, whatever it might be. Yeah, there's an
Speaker 1: enormous amount of discipline, motivation, drive, determination that you need
Speaker 1: to sort of have.
Speaker 2: Well, that's a very interesting thing to say that because
Speaker 2: you know, you guys, vix Meats are very successful, and
Speaker 2: you know you've got a great, big business and you
Speaker 2: do got lots of big customers, well known customers, and
Speaker 2: you know it's not just a nothing wrong with just
Speaker 2: a butcher shop.
Speaker 1: But it's a big deal, okay, And you're talking about
Speaker 1: work ethic.
Speaker 2: There are two words to sort of go together get
Speaker 2: thrown around a lot, But do you see it actually
Speaker 2: as an ethic. In other words, working hard is part
Speaker 2: of your fundamentals, as opposed to you need to do
Speaker 2: it for your job, for your business.
Speaker 1: I get.
Speaker 2: I get that bit because you know, in the competitive
Speaker 2: world you've got to give service and blah blah bah,
Speaker 2: there's the expectations of the customer.
Speaker 1: I get all that.
Speaker 2: But do you do it because of that or do
Speaker 2: you do it because it's just an ethic of yours
Speaker 2: that you saw as a kid growing up. In other words,
Speaker 2: because they like for me, I mean, I'm the same
Speaker 2: sort of not we want butchers, but like I had
Speaker 2: the same thing going growing up, as there's an ethic
Speaker 2: of hard work that my old man I watched my
Speaker 2: my dad do. In fact, we used to clean butcher
Speaker 2: shops on Satday afternoons. We had a datat a cleaning business,
Speaker 2: and as well as these other jobs, but we used
Speaker 2: to clean butcher shops at about two o'clock.
Speaker 1: We had two which shops we used.
Speaker 2: To clean this to go and get all the saw
Speaker 2: dust and clean the wood thing that you cut the
Speaker 2: meat up on. Yeah, and put more saw dust down
Speaker 2: and all that sort of stuff. I will school type
Speaker 2: of cleaning, but but they're sort of bit of a side.
Speaker 2: But the work ethic and I don't know if people
Speaker 2: understand this that well, but the work ethic is not
Speaker 2: because of the expectations of the people you're dealing with,
Speaker 2: but it's actually an ethic.
Speaker 1: That's inside you. Yeah. And where do you get that from?
Speaker 2: Like I mean you And if let's say someone didn't
Speaker 2: grasp with that, Let's say their parents are lazy motherfuckers.
Speaker 1: And.
Speaker 2: Where how do you do How does someone develop that
Speaker 2: if they haven't experienced it or seen it as opposed
Speaker 2: being told.
Speaker 1: I think it's what I might say next might be
Speaker 1: slightly controversial because I think everybody's got the ability to
Speaker 1: work hard, okay, But then there's a difference between working
Speaker 1: hard and exactly what you just said and ethic. You know,
Speaker 1: something that's inside you, ye, something that dry I've got
Speaker 1: to work hard, yeah, yeah, And I think that comes
Speaker 1: from certain generations and if you look at our parents,
Speaker 1: if we look at our grandparents, those humble beginnings, the
Speaker 1: need to have to fight every day just to survive, Yeah,
Speaker 1: just to survive, I think is something that becomes ingrained
Speaker 1: in you, okay, And unfortunately that doesn't seem to exist
Speaker 1: to the same level and extent nowadays.
Speaker 2: And do you put that and do you put that
Speaker 2: down to I'm just it's a little bit off topic,
Speaker 2: but do you put that down to because I don't
Speaker 2: blame the let's call it the younger generation, because they
Speaker 2: haven't had to be that way, because because Australia has
Speaker 2: become quite wealthy, and Australians generally speaking, parents in fact
Speaker 2: for that matter, have become relatively speaking wealthy, especially relative
Speaker 2: to the rest of the world, and as a result
Speaker 2: of that, there hasn't been the need to work that hard,
Speaker 2: more so these days, and therefore they've never really experienced
Speaker 2: it them. And I often said to people, like, we've
Speaker 2: had ridiculously low unemployment numbers for so long.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter who you are. You can get a
Speaker 1: job and you can get good money. You can get
Speaker 1: forty five bucks. In Nouri, we're cleaning cleaner.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean we have cleaners were getting fifty bucks
Speaker 2: an hour, whereas cleaner used to be lucky to about
Speaker 2: to pull.
Speaker 1: Twenty bucks an hour.
Speaker 2: And it's great money, Like fifty bucks an hour forty hours,
Speaker 2: that's two thousand bucks a week.
Speaker 1: And if you want to work that day Sunday, you
Speaker 1: can probably push it up to three. Yeah, yeah, totally,
Speaker 1: Like that's crazy money hunt fifty grand a year. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I wholeheartedly agree with that. You know, it's
Speaker 1: that struggle, that fight, that humility. You know, you love boxing.
Speaker 1: I love boxing. You look at the background of most boxes, right,
Speaker 1: they come from hard backgrounds, slums, poor backgrounds. Manny Pacauer,
Speaker 1: Mike Tyson, all the greatest fighters in the world had
Speaker 1: these really tough, humble struggle, all that sort of stuff,
Speaker 1: and that is that environment that builds resilience, it builds
Speaker 1: the termination all that sort of stuff. Look, I've got
Speaker 1: four of my own kids. They're great kids, Okay, But
Speaker 1: to your point, I've probably not set them up for
Speaker 1: success because I have provided you know this, well you
Speaker 1: didn't have yeah yeah, yeah, this comfortable environment, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, where they don't have to struggle, where
Speaker 1: they don't have to fight. So you're torn as a parent, right,
Speaker 1: because you want to provide your kids the best starting life,
Speaker 1: but by default you're probably harming their ability to reach
Speaker 1: their full potential or understand the importance of hard work, sacrifice,
Speaker 1: all the sort of things that our parents and our
Speaker 1: grandparents and all that sort of stuff had to do so.
Speaker 2: For example, did your parents like we're in these suburbs
Speaker 2: here at the moment, but like, but by the way,
Speaker 2: it happens to be in the North Shore.
Speaker 1: And in fact there's a lot of.
Speaker 2: Wealthy people out the west as well, a lot. All
Speaker 2: everybody ever talks about is it's European summer. Who's going
Speaker 2: to Europe for the summer? Like did you ever see
Speaker 2: your mom and dad take European holidays every year and
Speaker 2: go to you know, in your case Croatia or you know,
Speaker 2: my case Grease, Like just mean everyone I know who's
Speaker 2: going to Greece? Like and I and psked me, are
Speaker 2: you going agress? I say no, which is working, Like
Speaker 2: I've got to work, and I do it because that's
Speaker 2: how my dad was. And I'm not trying to I'm
Speaker 2: not hero. I don't get me wrong. I'm not trying
Speaker 2: to say that about himself. It's just what I know.
Speaker 2: You'd be the same.
Speaker 1: You can't.
Speaker 2: You can't just get up and piss off and leave
Speaker 2: your business loan and say oh, let's go on a
Speaker 2: Maybe you do from time time, but it's not a
Speaker 2: it's not an expectation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sacrifices have to be made and growing up, I
Speaker 1: you know, I went without the things I wanted, never
Speaker 1: went without the things I needed. So my parents provided
Speaker 1: me everything that I needed. Food, roof of my head,
Speaker 1: warm bed, yeah, a warm bed, I loving, caring, environmental,
Speaker 1: those sort of things. But I wanted the latest sneakers,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, back in the day Jordan's
Speaker 1: used to come out all that sort of stuff. I
Speaker 1: wanted it. I never got it. My parents couldn't afford it, right,
Speaker 1: and I couldn't, you know, going to Europe. And I
Speaker 1: did remember going to Europe once or twice up to
Speaker 1: the age of eighteen. It's not an expectation, no, no,
Speaker 1: it was. It happened my mark every sort of maybe
Speaker 1: seven or eight one years, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Whereas there's an expectation nowadays that we're going out a
Speaker 1: European trip. Yeah, yeah, every summer we're going to escape
Speaker 1: the winter here and we're going to go to Europe
Speaker 1: type thing.
Speaker 2: So if you're so, if you're doing the startups, there's
Speaker 2: lots of startups around, we know, lots and lots and
Speaker 2: lots of them.
Speaker 1: I we're talking about the work ethic.
Speaker 2: What would you say to a startup about how they've
Speaker 2: got to get a hit their head around, how hard
Speaker 2: you got to work to succeed as a startup.
Speaker 1: The main message for me is there are going to
Speaker 1: be times where you're going to doubt yourself, where you're
Speaker 1: gonna you know, you have to keep your foot on
Speaker 1: that pedal NonStop twenty four to seven, and you need
Speaker 1: to embrace the suck. You need to eat dirt, you
Speaker 1: need to be humble. You just need to just shovel shit,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. There's no secrets, there's no shortcuts,
Speaker 1: there's no you know, and everybody talks about it. You know,
Speaker 1: you're successful, You're an overnight success. It just took your
Speaker 1: twenty years to sort of enjoy that sort of success.
Speaker 1: You know. There's just no secrets to it. Mark, It's
Speaker 1: just commitment, dedications, sacrifice. You know. I remember the first
Speaker 1: decade that my father and I started our business. I
Speaker 1: was still in my twenties. You know. My friends were
Speaker 1: finishing school, had sort of were unmarried. They were going out, clubbing, partying,
Speaker 1: all that sort of stuff. I couldn't. I couldn't do it.
Speaker 1: I could afford to do it. I could have done it,
Speaker 1: but it meant consequences, you know what I mean, Like
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be able to get out of bed, or
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be able to perform at my best, all
Speaker 1: that sort of stuff. It's those sacrifice is that you
Speaker 1: have to make that are inevitably going to sort of
Speaker 1: lead to the success that you are going to enjoy.
Speaker 1: But that success won't happen overnight. That success might happen
Speaker 1: in five years, ten years, fifteen years, twenty years, whatever
Speaker 1: it might be. Can you remember time?
Speaker 2: I'm going to get to break in a second, but
Speaker 2: I really curious do you remember it. I'm sure there's
Speaker 2: many more than one, But can you remember any one
Speaker 2: time that you thought to yourself and your dad and
Speaker 2: your talks, and my god, this is not going to work.
Speaker 2: You know, this is too bloody difficult to break into
Speaker 2: this particular market. Maybe we made it, We made a
Speaker 2: mistake in this whole endeavor.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was a time. And I don't share this
Speaker 1: and I don't speak about it openly because I'm a
Speaker 1: little bit I was a little bit embarrassed about it,
Speaker 1: especially early on. But when my father and I first
Speaker 1: started our family business, we started in a retail butcher
Speaker 1: shop in Oxford and Street and darling Hosts. So my
Speaker 1: father came from a wholesale background with Andrews. But our
Speaker 1: first business was this retail butcher shop in Oxford Street.
Speaker 1: So we started as a retailer and we were failing
Speaker 1: miserably as a retailer. What do you mean by that?
Speaker 1: So Oxford Street Darlinghurst if you sort of think about
Speaker 1: Oxford Street Darlinghurst in the late nineties, so ninety six,
Speaker 1: the late nineties, Oxford Street Darlinghurst was like Norton Street
Speaker 1: in like art was in each street, so door to
Speaker 1: door restaurants, the Balkan restaurants, all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 1: Even sort of Victoria Street Darlinghurst, Morgan's where we are
Speaker 1: now whatever, it was just cafe restaurants whatever. It was booming, okay,
Speaker 1: But Oxford Street and Darlinghurst was sort of you know,
Speaker 1: and it is the sort of gay capital of Australia.
Speaker 1: So single income or double income, no kids, no families
Speaker 1: in that sort of area, so money just yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So they were going out and eating in restaurants. They
Speaker 1: weren't cooking at home. So we opened or took over
Speaker 1: this retail butcher shop and there was no customers there
Speaker 1: was no families. There was nobody sort of shopping in
Speaker 1: that sort of area for meat. And sort of a
Speaker 1: few months went by and we were thinking, Jesus, have
Speaker 1: we made a mistake here? You know, we weren't making
Speaker 1: any money. There was barely a half a dozen customers
Speaker 1: that were sort of walking through the door. And it
Speaker 1: wasn't until you know, and once again you're back against
Speaker 1: the wall. So what do you do? You sort of
Speaker 1: you know, you need to think laterally, you need to
Speaker 1: think out the side of the square. You need to survive.
Speaker 1: My parents had put their life savings into this business.
Speaker 1: And I looked at the front door and I saw
Speaker 1: all of these restaurants, and I just started knocking on doors,
Speaker 1: you know, I started, you know, approaching these cafes and
Speaker 1: restaurants and saying, hey, you know, I'm Anthony from VIX Meat.
Speaker 1: We're a local butcher here in Oxford Street and Darlinghurst.
Speaker 1: You must use meat. What about using a local butcher?
Speaker 1: And that's how our wholesale business started. That was the
Speaker 1: turning point, our turning point for our business and ultimately
Speaker 1: what set us on the path that we ultimately were
Speaker 1: able to create this successful, highly regarded business. Was because
Speaker 1: we failed or we were failing at one thing and
Speaker 1: had to pivot and start and go on a different path.
Speaker 1: So that was significant for us. The next thing that
Speaker 1: really happened that sort of you know, elevated us and
Speaker 1: shot us to this sort of next plateau or level
Speaker 1: was Level forty one restaurant. I'm sure you'll remember, yeah,
Speaker 1: building Alan's. It was meant to be Alan Bond's apartment
Speaker 1: now called chiff Tower now Chiffley Tower there, yeah, And
Speaker 1: and it was where you know, the likes of Kerry
Speaker 1: Packer used to go and have lunch and all that
Speaker 1: sort of stuff, and it was an impossible place to
Speaker 1: get into and I'll never forget. So we started to
Speaker 1: sort of dig ourselves out of a bit of a
Speaker 1: hole that my father and our find ourselves in. We're
Speaker 1: dealing with Cafe one nine one, Morgan's, Grand Pacific, Blue Room, Raquel's,
Speaker 1: the Boalkan restaurants. So we started to get a bit
Speaker 1: momentum with these restaurants. And my father was very very
Speaker 1: passionate about awful. So you know, all the stuff that
Speaker 1: most people they like to eat, you know, livers, swear,
Speaker 1: good wog food, no peasant food. Yeah, so my parents,
Speaker 1: my father's upbringing, he couldn't his family couldn't afford, you know,
Speaker 1: all the prime cuts. So it was all of this
Speaker 1: sort of offul and all that sort of stuff that
Speaker 1: he was raised his livers, you know, sweetbreads, all that
Speaker 1: sort of stuff. Yeah, and my father proudly always used
Speaker 1: to display this tray of offul in the and for
Speaker 1: six months, nobody'd come into the shop and buy it,
Speaker 1: you know, so every single day we'd have to throw
Speaker 1: it out, and religiously my father would the next day
Speaker 1: set up a new display. And I remember, I remember
Speaker 1: I was down the back of the shop doing something,
Speaker 1: and I remember the bell ringing on the door. Somebody
Speaker 1: walked in and my dad having a conversation with somebody
Speaker 1: about awful okay, and sweetbreads and all that sort of stuff. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I didn't make much of it because I thought myself,
Speaker 1: you know, he hasn't sold any offl for six months.
Speaker 1: He's not going to sell any today. Anyway, the next day,
Speaker 1: so I pick it up. And you know when somebody
Speaker 1: sort of says their name in a way that you're
Speaker 1: meant to know who they are. Yeah, So it was,
Speaker 1: you know, he introduced himself, Hi, this is Dip mar Soyer.
Speaker 1: And then there was this uncomfortable sort of pause or whatever,
Speaker 1: because I didn't know who this guy was. Anyway, Look,
Speaker 1: I'm the chef of executive chef of Level forty one restaurant.
Speaker 1: I was in your shop yesterday, okay, and I bought
Speaker 1: some Ville sweetbreads. And then I was, oh, you're the guy,
Speaker 1: you know, because he was the only guy in the
Speaker 1: last six months that walked into the shop and bought
Speaker 1: some off or And he goes, look, I've got this restaurant.
Speaker 1: It's in the city, and you know, do you sell
Speaker 1: fresh chicken bones? And I thought it was a really
Speaker 1: weird thing for him to ask, because fresh chicken bones
Speaker 1: are pretty basic, pretty simple, you know. I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we can get fresh chicken bones. Oh would you be
Speaker 1: able to sort of supply sixty kilos of fresh chicken
Speaker 1: bones to my restaurant every day? And I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's no problems. Not the biggest sale I was ever
Speaker 1: going to make. I think think it was like a
Speaker 1: fifteen dollar sale or whatever. Anyway, I got off the phone.
Speaker 1: Dad asked me, oh, who's that on the phone. I goes, oh, Dad,
Speaker 1: that was that guy that came in yesterday and put
Speaker 1: some Ville sweetrests for you. Oh right, great, I remember him.
Speaker 1: What does he need? He owns a restaurant in the city.
Speaker 1: He wants sixty kill our chicken bones. My dad's eyes
Speaker 1: rolled over because it was like a fifteen dollar sale. Now,
Speaker 1: the big issue that I had was I didn't have
Speaker 1: a delivery van at that stage. I was making deliveries
Speaker 1: up and down Oxford Street with a trolley. That's all
Speaker 1: I needed, you know. So all of our customers were
Speaker 1: in Oxtra Street, so I was I was doing these
Speaker 1: deliveries with a trolley running up and down Oxrad Street.
Speaker 1: So we didn't have a delivery van. So that afternoon
Speaker 1: there's a bit of a pattern here of me twisting
Speaker 1: my dad's arm and convincing him to do silly, stupid things, okay,
Speaker 1: over our thirty year career. That afternoon we found ourselves
Speaker 1: on Paramatter Road in in you know where Paramounter Raid
Speaker 1: in Paramatta where that you know it used to be
Speaker 1: all the sort of car yards and all that sort
Speaker 1: of stuff. And I convinced my dad to buy a
Speaker 1: fifteen thousand dollars delivery van and for a fifteen dollar
Speaker 1: delivery to Level forty one restaurant.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Anyway, the next morning made the delivery, fighting traffic the
Speaker 1: whole you know, there and back. Took me about an
Speaker 1: hour and a half of my time. We made a
Speaker 1: fifteen thousand dollars investment in this van for a fifteen
Speaker 1: dollar sale. Okay, anyway, For the next three or four months,
Speaker 1: that's all we supplied Dip Marsayer and Level forty one
Speaker 1: restaurant sixty kilos of fresh chicken bones. Okay. But I
Speaker 1: stuck at it, and three months later ditmar rang up.
Speaker 1: It must have been a test. I'm thinking it was
Speaker 1: maybe a test to see how committed we were to
Speaker 1: sort of supplying him, being a supplier of his or whatever.
Speaker 1: Three or four months later he rang up. He goes, oh,
Speaker 1: do you do anything other than chicken bones? And I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, man, yeah, yeah, of course we do,
Speaker 1: you know, beeflam or whatever. Within a couple of months,
Speaker 1: he was spending fifteen thousand dollars a week with us, okay,
Speaker 1: which was more than fifty percent of our overall revenue
Speaker 1: every single week. And beyond the mark, you know, the
Speaker 1: credibility that it gave our business dealing with eleven forty.
Speaker 1: I was able then to introduce myself to Michael McMahon
Speaker 1: att Catalina, Neil Perry at Rockpool Tetsuyer Rosel and from
Speaker 1: there the momentum just grew. You know, I was able
Speaker 1: to sort of build this business based on the fact
Speaker 1: that we were servicing, supplying the best chefs and the
Speaker 1: best restaurants in the country.
Speaker 2: And that's this history, and that's an important lesson. So
Speaker 2: you sometimes you've got to just work at work, at work,
Speaker 2: at hangout to get one good proxy, one good reference
Speaker 2: point about the quality of your product and the service,
Speaker 2: and it doesn't matter. Sometimes it might take a year
Speaker 2: to do it, but no, it doesn't matter what the
Speaker 2: business is. But that one proxy, that one reference point,
Speaker 2: assuming you do a good job, then becomes a launching
Speaker 2: pad which you can leverage into like stacks of other
Speaker 2: customers and or clients. And sometimes we try to chase
Speaker 2: too many, especially in the startup world, we try to
Speaker 2: chase too many. We don't concentrate anyone in particular.
Speaker 1: We just got to choose one and go hard for it.
Speaker 2: Assuming you know that you can achieve, you think you're
Speaker 2: can achieve it, you just go hard for it until
Speaker 2: you get there. I quickly want to just be going
Speaker 2: together break. But before I go to the break, anything,
Speaker 2: just one thing for anyone who's listening. As I recall
Speaker 2: sweetbreads is sort of like a fatty bit of meat
Speaker 2: that sort of sits behind the neck or something like that.
Speaker 1: It's a gland. That is a gland that sits in
Speaker 1: the throat. Describe it. Yeah, there's not many people would
Speaker 1: have had it. Yeah, and it's bloody delicious. It's a delicacy.
Speaker 1: It doesn't sound very sexy or very appetizing, but it's
Speaker 1: a delicacy. So it's a gland, okay. And how you
Speaker 1: sort of prepare it your sort of you know, you
Speaker 1: soak it in milk, okay, and that sort of gets
Speaker 1: all rid of all the sort of the blood and
Speaker 1: all that sort of stuff in it, and then you
Speaker 1: fry them, okay, And you fry them and they're sort
Speaker 1: of just this pillowy, sort of soft it's like fatty.
Speaker 1: It's nearly fatty, but it's not fatty. Yeah, yeah, it's Yeah,
Speaker 1: it has that fatty sort of texture about it, but
Speaker 1: it's not fat it's this sort of gland. It's very
Speaker 1: hard to sort of explain. Greeks love it. Yeah, Greek.
Speaker 2: The Greek people love it. I mean a lot of
Speaker 2: Europeans love it. You only get too I guess, get.
Speaker 1: Too per animal. Yeah, and they're tiny, they're barely sort
Speaker 1: of fifty or sixty grams each, you know. Yeah, I've
Speaker 1: had him.
Speaker 2: I've had him in a Greek restaurant that I used
Speaker 2: to go to a place called the Ness Meant for
Speaker 2: many many years, they used to I haven't seen sweet
Speaker 2: breads anywhere for a long long time, but as I recorded,
Speaker 2: they were crumbed ones I had, and they were really delicious.
Speaker 2: But also know that they were probably a little bit
Speaker 2: fatty because that's what I used to away order every
Speaker 2: time I went there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but they got the same texture as lambranes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: people have tried. Yeah. Soft, but it's a delicate yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's a super food also, so beyond being a delicacy.
Speaker 1: And it's a superfood because awful is you know in
Speaker 1: terms of nutrients and how nutrient dense they are and
Speaker 1: all that sort of stuff. I don't want to go
Speaker 1: down this path, No, I want to go. It's been
Speaker 1: demonized for a while or whatever, but it's a super food.
Speaker 1: You know. It's a fundamental building block to sort of
Speaker 1: having a highly nutritious, healthy diet, you know, and offl
Speaker 1: is the next level of that in terms of how
Speaker 1: nutrient dens it is and how good it is. So
Speaker 1: you can have one hundred grams of veal liver, for instance, okay,
Speaker 1: and that's as good as having four hundred grams of
Speaker 1: or three hundred grams of beef or lamb or whatever.
Speaker 1: You need to eat one hundred kilos of kale, okay,
Speaker 1: in order to get the same nutrients that you'll get
Speaker 1: out of eating one hundred grams or one hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty grams of your liver. You know, I want to
Speaker 1: talk more about this. Let's go. The break comes straight back.
Speaker 1: I'm back from the break.
Speaker 2: I'm here with Anthony and we are talking all things
Speaker 2: at vix Meats.
Speaker 1: That would.
Speaker 2: I really appreciate the story and how you and your
Speaker 2: dad said this business up in the mid nineties, and
Speaker 2: actually how you've first worked out out supplying wholesale. At
Speaker 2: wholesale is probably better than supplying a retail and that
Speaker 2: was sort of forced upon it. That was a great pivot,
Speaker 2: and we all have to do pivots every now and then,
Speaker 2: let me just let's just have a little think about
Speaker 2: now the meat industry as a as an industry, so
Speaker 2: there is, like everything in the world these days, is
Speaker 2: a division between meat eaters and non meaders. Once upon
Speaker 2: a time you never heard from a non meat eater.
Speaker 1: Then I'm not going to call them vegans, where just
Speaker 1: a non meat eater.
Speaker 2: But there I presume there's enough meat eaters in the world,
Speaker 2: and it's not something you're concerned about that meat will
Speaker 2: become one of those things that we stop consuming, irrespective
Speaker 2: you know, all the stuff they're talking about, you know,
Speaker 2: animals creating meat, cows creating meat, and all those sorts
Speaker 2: of things. We're sure position on that. So let's leave
Speaker 2: nutrition aside from moment just as an industry.
Speaker 1: I'm deeply respectful of the fact that everybody has a choice,
Speaker 1: you know, and for me, I don't I don't want to.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to deny the fact that the meat
Speaker 1: industry as a whole needs to take some serious responsibility
Speaker 1: in and around its impact on the environment. Okay, and yeah,
Speaker 1: methane production and you know, cows belching and farting and
Speaker 1: all that sort of stuff. The production of meat in
Speaker 1: terms of its energy and water usage, all that sort
Speaker 1: of stuff. I think every industry, not just the meat industry,
Speaker 1: needs to take a good look in terms of what
Speaker 1: ultimate impact that it has on the environment. I know that.
Speaker 1: You know there was this period you know what was it.
Speaker 1: It was it was sort of probably just before COVID,
Speaker 1: you know, where meat was demonized. It was considered not
Speaker 1: good for you in terms of your health and well being.
Speaker 1: It was it was considered one of the biggest control
Speaker 1: tribute to the deterioration of the environment, the impact on
Speaker 1: the environment, it's carbon footprint, so to speak. That then
Speaker 1: led to this huge interest and explosion in plant based
Speaker 1: meat alternatives. You'll saw companies like Beyond and Impossible just
Speaker 1: come out of nowhere, and you know there's stock prices
Speaker 1: sort of skyrocket and all this buzz around sort of
Speaker 1: plant based meat alternatives. Look, the reality is marked, there's
Speaker 1: going to be nine billion people on this planet by
Speaker 1: twenty fifty. There isn't enough meat. There isn't enough food
Speaker 1: that's going to be able to supply all of those people.
Speaker 2: So the fundamental problem is not enough food. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: so we know where it comes from.
Speaker 1: So I'm completely open to coming up with alternatives, but
Speaker 1: as long as there's transparency in and around those alternatives,
Speaker 1: I think it's all good. But yeah, we need to
Speaker 1: find solutions in terms of how we're going to feed
Speaker 1: the world. Okay, with with with with good quality food?
Speaker 1: Now process food? We know, you know, don't question how
Speaker 1: much good food costs, question how much bad food? How
Speaker 1: cheap bad food is? You know, so the answer isn't
Speaker 1: process food either. You know, there's there's a lot of
Speaker 1: science that that that tells you that that you know,
Speaker 1: plants and animals, you know, vegetables, meat, all that sort
Speaker 1: of stuff are the fundamental building blocks to having a healthy, happy,
Speaker 1: long life. And all of us want to be happy,
Speaker 1: healthy and live a long life. I haven't met anybody
Speaker 1: that wants to be happy and healthy but not live
Speaker 1: a long life or or unhappy, live a long life
Speaker 1: and healthy, you know, all of us want those three things.
Speaker 1: And good food and good quality food is a part
Speaker 1: of that sort of equation. So yeah, Look, the mean
Speaker 1: industry I think has a big part to play in
Speaker 1: terms of feeding the world. Okay, it has to tax
Speaker 1: and responsibility in around its carbon footprint. But then at
Speaker 1: the same time, regenerary farming, okay, is a way that
Speaker 1: we can also improve the environment, because there's it's proven
Speaker 1: that you know, good soil and and and farmland secretes
Speaker 1: carbon out of the environment, you know, and and and
Speaker 1: blocks it locks it, yeah, blocks it, and and it
Speaker 1: locks it in the ground. Yeah, and locks it into
Speaker 1: the ground, just like the ocean does, and seaweed and
Speaker 1: all those sort of things. So so I don't think,
Speaker 1: you know, you can't be sort of you can't say
Speaker 1: that one thing's there's no silver bullet. You know, it's
Speaker 1: a combination of a lot of things that I think,
Speaker 1: I think are going to feed the world in a sustainable, healthy,
Speaker 1: long term way and preserve what's happening in the environment.
Speaker 2: And that's a good balanced way of looking at it.
Speaker 2: So I mean, as a businessman, do you you and
Speaker 2: your father or your family members have to sit down
Speaker 2: and sort of say, what's the prognosis for our industry
Speaker 2: as as a commercial prognosis, you know, like that people
Speaker 2: will continue to buy meat, our meat, your meat in particular,
Speaker 2: do you have to start to pivot around these things,
Speaker 2: because you know, you pivoted back in the night is
Speaker 2: by becoming a supply because retail wasn't working because of
Speaker 2: the geography you or your location. I should say, do
Speaker 2: you see a time at which someone like vix Meats
Speaker 2: might start to even look at alternatives to meet and
Speaker 2: being a supply of alternatives to meet? I mean, is
Speaker 2: that something you would never do or do you just
Speaker 2: or you would consider.
Speaker 1: There's a few things that we've you know, we're open to.
Speaker 1: You know, as a business, we have to continue to
Speaker 1: sort of evolve. We need to be mindful of what's
Speaker 1: happening in terms of trends, so we're always looking at
Speaker 1: many things. We want to remain relevant as a business.
Speaker 1: We want to keep going into the future. But but
Speaker 1: if I can just mention something quickly, to his credit,
Speaker 1: I think my father did a remarkable job of future
Speaker 1: proofing our business in the very very early days, in
Speaker 1: the formative days of our business. And what I mean
Speaker 1: by that is my father. He won't take offense to this.
Speaker 1: My father's not an educated man. He never went to school,
Speaker 1: you know. He school wasn't for him and all that
Speaker 1: sort of stuff. But to his credit, somehow he was
Speaker 1: able to sort of future proof our business. And what
Speaker 1: I mean by that was, I remember when I first
Speaker 1: started and the first day that I started working with
Speaker 1: my father, he told me about the philosophy that's fundamentally
Speaker 1: sort of bound our family of butchers over the last
Speaker 1: sort of four or five generations, and that was that
Speaker 1: as butchers, the ultimate respect that we can show on animals,
Speaker 1: so ultimately, as butcher's we're taking the life of the animal.
Speaker 1: You know, there's no way around that, okay, but the
Speaker 1: ultimate respect that we can show that animal is to
Speaker 1: use every single part of it, okay, not to waste
Speaker 1: any of it. So in terms of being conscious and
Speaker 1: you know, the environment and not and and utilizing everything
Speaker 1: and being sustainable or whatever, my father sort of set
Speaker 1: that that stepping stone in place very early on. So
Speaker 1: as a business, we've been obsessed with making sure that
Speaker 1: we use every single part of the animal, that we
Speaker 1: don't waste it, that we educate our customers in and
Speaker 1: around that there's more to the animal than sort of
Speaker 1: tea bone, scotch field at sirloin and all the sort
Speaker 1: of popular cuts, you know. And we've worked with chefs
Speaker 1: to sort of put all of these what are considered
Speaker 1: to be secondary cuts on menus, to sort of embrace them,
Speaker 1: to celebrate them all that sort of stuff. So that's
Speaker 1: one example of how we continue to sort of drive
Speaker 1: our business forward, remain relevant, and do our bit in
Speaker 1: terms of respecting the craft, the industry, the mean industry
Speaker 1: as a whole protein. You know, look, we're good butchers.
Speaker 1: I don't see ourselves going into into seafood, you know,
Speaker 1: I see that as as a special in itself. I
Speaker 1: think we need to stick to what we're good at.
Speaker 1: We need to sort of be mindful of what's out there,
Speaker 1: We need to investigate. I had conversations with Beyond and
Speaker 1: Impossible Meats, you know, in the late sort of twenty eighteen's,
Speaker 1: you know, seventeens or whatever, and now all that sort
Speaker 1: of happened, and I just wasn't convinced that that was
Speaker 1: the right solution for our business. You know, when you
Speaker 1: looked at a packet of their product and you looked
Speaker 1: at all the ingredients, you couldn't recognize. You needed a
Speaker 1: science degree to be able to recognize. You didn't recognize
Speaker 1: ninety percent of those ingredients. Whereas you look at meat,
Speaker 1: traditional meat, and for me, real is real traditional meat.
Speaker 1: You know, what are the ingredients? It's meat, you know,
Speaker 1: it's grass, it's the sun, it's water. You know, it's
Speaker 1: all natural ingredients that go into producing and raising that product,
Speaker 1: and that's got to be good for you. So we're
Speaker 1: always looking at things trying to evolve, stay ahead. We're
Speaker 1: considered a bit of a market leader in terms of
Speaker 1: what we do within our space. The rest of the
Speaker 1: world sort of looks at our business in terms of,
Speaker 1: you know, what we're doing to sort of continue to
Speaker 1: sort of evolve, grow, diversify all of those sort of things.
Speaker 2: With a lesson before other business owners who are listening
Speaker 2: to this podcast is the lesson that you've got out
Speaker 2: of this is sure, always be open to changes. But
Speaker 2: at the same time, if we're doing something well, stick
Speaker 2: to our lane.
Speaker 1: Totally and that that's in a nutshell how we sort
Speaker 1: of look at our business. You know, we know what
Speaker 1: we're good at. We stick to that. However, we are
Speaker 1: respectful that, you know, there's options out there, There's different
Speaker 1: things happening, So we've got one eye on what's sort
Speaker 1: of happening out there also, and there might be bits
Speaker 1: of it that we sort of embrace pull into our business.
Speaker 1: But I think it's about sticking to what you're good at.
Speaker 2: So got stuck in a whole lot of different things
Speaker 2: areas just in terms of vix mes. Now, so just
Speaker 2: give a bit of a thumbnail sketch of how do
Speaker 2: you are what you do? So I have seen your
Speaker 2: one of your outlets at the fish markets, which is
Speaker 2: you're selling meat that I know. You've got Churchills in
Speaker 2: Wollaro which is very famous shelf front, very very cool
Speaker 2: to go in there. There is a story about Anthony Bourdain.
Speaker 2: He said something about it. Maybe you could tell us
Speaker 2: about that. Well, it gives a thumbnail sketch of what
Speaker 2: you do now like your.
Speaker 1: Group, Yeah, sure, at its heart, our core business, our
Speaker 1: main business, our bread and butter. What we've been able
Speaker 1: to sort of carve out this phenomenal successful reputation out
Speaker 1: of is wholesaling meat, supplying the best chefs and the
Speaker 1: best restaurants and the best venues in the country. That's
Speaker 1: how we built our business. That's how we built our
Speaker 1: reputation pre COVID. And this is a bit of an
Speaker 1: interest in fact, because there's been you know, we've had
Speaker 1: to pivot again as a business post COVID, but pre
Speaker 1: COVID ninety five percent of our you know, we had
Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty million dollar business, employing one hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty staff, supplying six hundred restaurants across the seaboard
Speaker 1: of Australia, so a significant sized business. Ninety five percent
Speaker 1: of our revenue and eighty percent of our profit came
Speaker 1: from that. That that whole saling side of our business.
Speaker 1: Restaurants to restaurants, airlines, Quantas, Crown, the Star, all the
Speaker 1: major five star hotels, the Park, Hied, the Hilton, you know,
Speaker 1: you name it, all the best chefs and restaurants in
Speaker 1: the country. That that that's that that's our core business
Speaker 1: and remains our core business. We then opened up Victor
Speaker 1: Churchill in two thousand and nine in Oxfordshire, in sorry
Speaker 1: in Queen Street in Mallara. Are very ambitious, a very ambitious,
Speaker 1: high end bespoke retail meat experience. I might add that
Speaker 1: we opened it during the GFC or you know, when
Speaker 1: the world was in meltdown and the banking industries in mental,
Speaker 1: so a very difficult sort of period and time, and
Speaker 1: we were aping up the most expensive butcher shop that's
Speaker 1: ever been built in the world, and that's gone on
Speaker 1: to phenomenal success. Yes, Anthony Bourdain Oprah Winfrey, who Jackman,
Speaker 1: you name it. It's been a bit of a destination
Speaker 1: for people to sort of come and visit and come
Speaker 1: and have a look at. Anthony Bordein famously referred to
Speaker 1: it as the best and the most beautiful butcher shop
Speaker 1: in the world. Very humbling. We then to throw a
Speaker 1: cat amongst the pigeons or a tea ban amongst the salmon.
Speaker 1: Ten years ago we opened up a VIX branded a
Speaker 1: Vix Meat branded retail store at the Sydney Fish Market,
Speaker 1: so the biggest fish markets in the Southern Hemisphere in
Speaker 1: redness for the major redevelopment of that. But despite those
Speaker 1: two quite successful stores pre COVID, they still made up
Speaker 1: a small percentage of our overall business. Then COVID hit
Speaker 1: and percent my revenue came from wholesaling, to restaurants, to cafes,
Speaker 1: to hotels and airlines. When COVID hit and all of
Speaker 1: those places were forced to close, I literally Mark watched
Speaker 1: my business okay, and one hundred and twenty million dollars
Speaker 1: of revenue. I saw it fall off a cliff, you know, overnight.
Speaker 1: But like I alluded to earlier, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: fight in our business. And in our family, we never
Speaker 1: go down without a fight, without throwing punches, whether we're
Speaker 1: winning or losing. And our pivot our way of digging ourselves.
Speaker 1: We had five or six million dollars worth of meat
Speaker 1: sitting in our warehouse, in our core room. We had
Speaker 1: another six or seven million dollars of debtors so you know,
Speaker 1: twelve new money, yeah, twelve thirty million dollars worth of
Speaker 1: working capital that was just tied up in our business,
Speaker 1: that was just sitting there, not moving, not going anywhere.
Speaker 1: And our pivot was like most businesses, into online. We'd
Speaker 1: never had any experience with online business at that point,
Speaker 1: didn't know how to do it, didn't know where to start.
Speaker 1: But once again, when you got don't know many choices,
Speaker 1: it's amazing how resourceful you can be. And on the
Speaker 1: first of April, on April Fool's Day of twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: we launched vix Meat Direct, which was a online home
Speaker 1: delivery business to people's homes, delivering the finest quality meat
Speaker 1: in Australia, the sort of meat that was destined to
Speaker 1: the best chefs and the best restaurants. We were delivering
Speaker 1: it to people's doorsteps. Obviously, people were at home. They
Speaker 1: were locked up, they couldn't.
Speaker 2: Go out, and they prepared to spend a bit more
Speaker 2: that yeah, exactly to spoil themselves.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, and I was spoiling themselves out, and why
Speaker 1: wouldn't they you know, it was a horrible time that
Speaker 1: we were all going through and and he went game busters.
Speaker 1: We've done to date, so sort of what is it now?
Speaker 1: Sort of four years on, we've done fifty five million
Speaker 1: dollars worth of sales just through that one and that
Speaker 1: business still going business delivery business. And this is a
Speaker 1: real something, a really proud moment for me in the
Speaker 1: business that sales channel while it was a survival strategy, strategy,
Speaker 1: while it was something to keep our staff employed and
Speaker 1: in jobs in an effort to sort of get some
Speaker 1: cash going through the business, converting this stock into cash,
Speaker 1: keeping our staff in jobs and just paying the bills.
Speaker 1: That that's else. Channel remains part of our business to
Speaker 1: this day. So what it's done, it's given given a
Speaker 1: new business. Yeah, and it's given us. It's you know
Speaker 1: the analogy that I use, you know, pre covid. You know,
Speaker 1: we were a stool with one leg. Okay, The bulk
Speaker 1: of our business was was was wholesaling, okay, so there
Speaker 1: was a bit of stability, but we were still with
Speaker 1: one leg. Okay. Subsequently, we've we've opened up bricks and
Speaker 1: water retail stores, so we've got another leg to our stool. Okay,
Speaker 1: so a little bit more stable. Okay. Now with this
Speaker 1: online business, we've got our third leg to our stool.
Speaker 1: You know. So there's there's there's diversity to our business.
Speaker 1: There stability to our business, there's strength to our business.
Speaker 1: And and it's amazing what adversity. It's amazing what hard
Speaker 1: times are able to sort of you know, as that
Speaker 1: saying goes, pressure creates diamonds, right, you know. And a
Speaker 1: lot of people, you know, panic, a lot of people
Speaker 1: give up, a lot of people lose hope. It's easy
Speaker 1: to give up, right you know what I mean? Well,
Speaker 1: why didn't you give up? Though? Won't you tell me?
Speaker 2: What is it that makes you not give up?
Speaker 1: I just that's one thing that I can't explain. There's
Speaker 1: this desire within me. It might be pride, okay, which
Speaker 1: sometimes can be borderline arrogance. Okay, it's a bit of
Speaker 1: a fine line between pride and arrogance. I do my
Speaker 1: best to stay on the pride side of that line,
Speaker 1: you know. But I think it's pride, it's that determination,
Speaker 1: it's that passion, it's that love, it's that never give
Speaker 1: give up attitude. I suppose I'm deeply respectful of, you know,
Speaker 1: my family history and the toil and the struggle. You know,
Speaker 1: my father came to this country like most migrants. This
Speaker 1: story isn't unique to me, Mark, you know, will resonate
Speaker 1: with a lot of migrants. My father came to this
Speaker 1: country in the late sixties at the age of seventeen.
Speaker 1: You know. He was on a boat for three months.
Speaker 1: You know, I didn't know the language, you know, I
Speaker 1: didn't know anyone here. Literally the shirt on his back
Speaker 1: and one suitcase, you know, no education, and he just
Speaker 1: put his head down and he worked and he built something,
Speaker 1: you know. And I think it's that that that keeps
Speaker 1: me sort of motivated and going, you know, because it's
Speaker 1: easy to say everyone has their moments. I have my
Speaker 1: bad days, and it's easy to sort of give up.
Speaker 1: It's easier not to put the work in. It's easy
Speaker 1: to sort of pack up your bags and go home
Speaker 1: an hour earlier, all that sort of stuff. But it's
Speaker 1: just yeah, just I suppose yeah, pride and and and
Speaker 1: just not giving in and just always fighting. And final
Speaker 1: question for him, mate, where do from here? What's next?
Speaker 1: Anything next? You're going to go and launch in the
Speaker 1: US or euribles? I did that that we didn't have
Speaker 1: a chance to sort of talk about that in depth.
Speaker 1: But as many successes as I've had in my career,
Speaker 1: in my life, I've had my fair share of failures too.
Speaker 1: And in two thousand and five, twenty years ago, I
Speaker 1: launched a vix meat business in Shanghai. You know, most
Speaker 1: people didn't know where China was on a map, you know,
Speaker 1: I know it's become this global powerhouse and a big
Speaker 1: trade partner for Australia now and really important to Australia
Speaker 1: and our economy and all that sort of stuff in
Speaker 1: the world economy. But in two thousand and five, I
Speaker 1: opened up a start of the art two thousand square
Speaker 1: meet a facility in Shanghai to sort of import, you know,
Speaker 1: this high quality chilled Australian meat and supply as many
Speaker 1: of the Chinese emerging, growing affluent Chinese as possible. And
Speaker 1: then that wasn't enough for me. In February two thousand
Speaker 1: and six, I opened up a facility in Singapore. I
Speaker 1: really wanted to sort of play in that sort of
Speaker 1: South East Asia Asian sort of marketplace, you know. And
Speaker 1: by two thousand and eight I closed. I'll closed, you know,
Speaker 1: and I felt fat, fell flat on my face. It
Speaker 1: was my first ever big failure, you know. So I've
Speaker 1: done that whole overseas thing. Where to now. Look, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm fifty one years of age. I'm getting on a bit.
Speaker 1: I'm still young. I still feel good. I still have
Speaker 1: a lot to give and contribute. I still have a
Speaker 1: lot of fight and a lot of energy. But I'm
Speaker 1: not thirty years old. I'm not twenty years old. I'm
Speaker 1: not forty years old anymore. I'm a lot more strategic nowadays.
Speaker 1: I still want to grow. I still want to give
Speaker 1: opportunities to people within our business to grow and develop
Speaker 1: and experience things that I've been fortunate enough to experience.
Speaker 1: We're continuing to sort of build out our bricks and
Speaker 1: water retail sort of footprints. So we opened up recently
Speaker 1: a vix Stora or Chase. We're opening up in August
Speaker 1: at Bonni Junction. We've got our first vis retail store
Speaker 1: planned for Melbourne. That'll open at Chasten at the beginning
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty five, on the back of opening up
Speaker 1: Victor Churchill in Melbourne two years ago. So yeah, I
Speaker 1: still love what I do. I still see opportunities and
Speaker 1: I want to keep going. I want to keep this
Speaker 1: legacy going. My daughter works in the business, my oldest
Speaker 1: son works in the business, so hopefully I can provide
Speaker 1: them a bit of a platform and an opportunity to
Speaker 1: feel the same sense of pride that I've felt over
Speaker 1: the last thirty years owning and operating my family business
Speaker 1: and growing that servicing customers with humility, humbleness, and never
Speaker 1: wavering from from this commitment that my father made, that
Speaker 1: I inherited to quality, where the whole family is obsessed
Speaker 1: with quality, you know. And hopefully my kids are able
Speaker 1: to sort of inherit that that passion and that pride
Speaker 1: for what we do and continue on and I'm able
Speaker 1: to sort of guide them, mentor them just like my
Speaker 1: father did with me. You know.
Speaker 2: Well, I think I think that's amazing and it's amazing
Speaker 2: story that you've done so well. It's not that really
Speaker 2: that long a period that you've been doing. If it
Speaker 2: was only like twenty five thirty years or something, and
Speaker 2: you are a significant footprint on the Australian let's call
Speaker 2: it wholesome meat industry, the wholesome meat industry.
Speaker 1: So, Anthony pull you did well when you're first courage
Speaker 1: pahrich Horidge. So we'll later that.
Speaker 2: So Anthony Pharridge and founder along with your dad of
Speaker 2: Vixed Meats, thanks very much for coming in today. Just
Speaker 2: one last thing, you know, the thing I just got
Speaker 2: out of this whole conversation. Sure, you try different things,
Speaker 2: and sometimes you file you're prepared to fail in your case,
Speaker 2: and all businesses are the same. But at the end
Speaker 2: of the day, if you know what you're doing is
Speaker 2: going well and it is a correct and a good
Speaker 2: outcome for both customers and yourself and largely just generally,
Speaker 2: then stick to your lane and be prepared, be happy
Speaker 2: enough to build on that.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Just keep building, Just keep building, keep building. You don't
Speaker 2: have to take over the world.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And there is a temptation there when you enjoy success,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure you've seen this in your own career.
Speaker 1: When you enjoy your success, you think you can apply
Speaker 1: that success to other industry ruggles. They say, yeah, all
Speaker 1: that sort of stuff. You know, and success is a drug,
Speaker 1: you know, and when you're doing well, you know, you
Speaker 1: feed off that and sometimes it can lead you astray. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and remembering how you started, remembering what you're good at,
Speaker 1: sticking to that, being happy and comfortable and content with
Speaker 1: that is a bit of a skill and a learned skill. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thanks for mauch chnthen my pleasure. Thank you, Mark,