Page 11 - Food&Drink Business Magazine June 2019

provide good, sustainable solutions to their clients. So if they can say ‘I get that you want to eat pancakes for breakfast every day, so here are some that are good for you’, it helps them. At the end of the day, they want people to eat better and feel better, and that’s exactly what we want.”
IN-HOUSE EFFICIENCY
PBCo. handles nearly all processes in-house, supported by external contractors and suppliers where required.
“We move incredibly quickly and have a high-energy team and workplace culture, which is difficult to extend to external providers. By doing things in-house we can turn them around quickly, build incredibly efficient systems and maintain the high level of quality and service our customers expect and deserve.”
Their gluten-free, HACCP- certified Sydney manufacturing facility is where all baking mixes are made, while a product just launched in April, Ready- Made Protein Pizza Base, is manufactured externally via a contract manufacturer.
“We launched the pizza base at the Sydney Fitness Show in April, and it was wild. I think we gave away a bit over 3000 samples of pizza, and pretty much every person went for another slice. Everyone loves pizza, but most people don’t eat it because they recognise it’s not good for them, so as soon as you say ‘actually, here’s a pizza that is good for you’, you’re going to get some eyeballs. Obviously the smell wafting helped to draw people in!
“A replacement for a normal pizza base is something we’d had in the pipeline for a little while. So the taste, texture and structure are basically the same: you can pick it up, roll it, fold it, whatever. But instead of using predominantly white flour and nothing else, we’ve got high
protein levels in there from lupin flour and rice protein, resulting in 75 per cent less carbs, and four times the protein.”
GROWING RETAIL
The pizza bases are only available online at the moment, and only distributed to NSW, ACT and metropolitan Hobart, Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane.
“We are working on getting it into retail, but because it’s a fresh product it’s not as straightforward as it is with our baking mixes which have a 12-month shelf life, so we’re working on extending the shelf life because our retailers want it. At the beginning of May retailers were already calling us, saying customers have come in
asking about this pizza base, can we have it?”
Other than the pizza bases, PBCo.’s 19 other products from its three ranges – The Protein Party, Original Gluten Free Performance and Plant Based Performance – are available online around Australia and into New Zealand and the USA. There’s also a strong retail presence in health food shops and independent grocers across Australia. (In early June, they released a fourth range called Simply Low Carb – see box.)
As low-carb foods were seen as niche with no mainstream demand when they first launched, Hopkins says they chose not to approach the big supermarket chains.
✷ SIBLING SUCCESS
“We’ve had the opportunity to work with a number of fantastic suppliers over the years. We always start from nature, using the best quality, real-food ingredients, with no hidden nasties, sourced from top- quality Aussie farmers first. Our lupins, for example, come from a farm near Albury.”
PBCo. now has 12 staff – seven in the office and five in production – along with three expert dietician/nutritionist staff whose input they call upon to understand “what’s happening at the coalface of people’s dietary issues”.
“Having those relationships to be able to bounce questions back and forth is really useful, but it’s not a market that we really target with any kind of agenda. We reach out to a few, and we get a lot reaching out to us. Mostly it’s them wanting to
BRAND NEW LAUNCHES
In early June, PBCo. released a six-product range called “Simply Low Carb”, comprising mixes for pancakes, bread, cookies, chocolate and vanilla cupcakes and a sugar-free icing.
“These are to give people sweet treats, but without the guilt. It’s a range we’ve tested online previously under a different brand. In bringing everything under the PBCo. banner, we have launched that range into retail, in health food shops, all around Australia for the first time. So that’s really exciting, and we’re really keen to get it out there,” Luke Hopkins says.
www.foodanddrinkbusiness.com.au | June 2019 | Food&Drink business | 11
RISING STAR
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