Page 24 - Food & Drink Business Nov-Dec 2019

✷ RISING STAR
Small bites, big flavour: Mr Chen’s aims to deliver authenticity.
IN 1978, Mr and Mrs Chen arrived in Australia as refugees from Vietnam. While they didn’t speak English (rather learning it
in their 30s), they did “speak food”. Mr Chen was one of 13
children, helping his parents who sold
groceries and salted duck eggs.
It was his desire to share his love for food – particularly dumplings – with Australians, that
sparked the eponymous Mr Chen’s
food business. Daughter Nancy joined
the business 15 years ago, followed five years later by her sister Lucy. Four years ago the Chen siblings took the reins of the
now second-generation business. Lucy Chen says, “Dad was
kind of a one-man show, and for a long time it was just the two of them. They were both still doing their other day and night jobs for quite a number of years.”
“But we’ve been growing really fast. We needed to make sure that we’re having sustained growth, and in the last 12 months our team has doubled and there’s now 20 of us.”
Based at Dandenong in outer Melbourne, Mr Chen’s contract manufactures both in Australia and overseas.
All marketing and packaging design is undertaken in-house.
With authenticity being so important, the Small Bites ranges are individually handmade.
Lucy Chen says it was a
matter of ethics to partner with overseas factories who pay their adult-only employees a fair wage in decent working conditions.
Lucy Chen says it’s a combined striving for quality and the drive for authenticity that have seen their growth gain traction.
She says with recent growth, export is “probably more a desire than a plan”, adding they will concentrate on growing their domestic market sustainably.
“We’re going to keep pursuing retail and adding new lines. We did our first lot of above-the-line marketing earlier this year, but I think it’s more just making sure that we are launching those good-quality products, and we’re maintaining all the relationships that we have at the moment with the retailers. ✷
Full steam ahead
With an unbending focus on authenticity and quality, close-knit family-run business Mr Chen’s has created success from clever products and sheer hard work.
A low-carb high
The health-passionate Hopkins siblings have created a low-carb powerhouse making solid ground in mainstream markets.
UNTIL his mid-teens, Luke Hopkins went through “spurts of growing out, before growing up”. His weight struggle ended when he followed a family friend’s advice to take up weight training with a low-carb, high-protein diet.
In 2012, Luke’s sister was running her own café. She learned about low-carb from customers who were personal trainers and others avoiding carb-heavy breads and muffins.
Two years later, Anna sold her Whole Meal Café and the pair launched The Protein Bread Co. It offered low-carb, high- protein, gluten-free baked foods to elite athletes and people with specific health needs.
Luke Hopkins says the
company’s growing commercial success, combined with that of Anna’s Low Carb Kitchen (low-carb and no-added-sugar baking mixes), resulted in them combining the two brands to form PBCo.
According to Hopkins, mainstream interest in low-carb eating has seen the market grow 250 per cent over the past five years – a trajectory he expects to continue well into the foreseeable future.
“When the CSIRO, Australia’s national science research body, releases a book for the general public championing the benefits of a low-carb diet, you know it’s reached mainstream,” he says.
PBCo. handles nearly all processes in-house, supported
Mainstream munchies: low-carb eating is gaining traction.
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.”
Its 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.
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. ✷
24 | Food&Drink business | November-December 2019 | www.foodanddrinkbusiness.com.au