Page 8 - Food & Drink Business Jan-Feb 2020

INDUSTRY LEADERS
Karen Lebsanft started manufacturing lavosh flatbread more than 25 years ago. There have been highs and lows, but at the end of 2019 she was awarded a Gold Stevie Award to recognise her longevity in the industry. Kim Berry writes.
Kurrajong heights
QHow did you get involved in the food manufacturing sector? Kurrajong Kitchen came from the seeds of a little 60 seat restaurant in Kurrajong Village, in the Hawkesbury region of New South Wales. Back in 1993, we were serving lavosh flatbread on cheese plates. Our customers loved it so much that as a team of two, we baked and filled a basket of lavosh filled cellophane bags at the door each week.
Each night we would
get the ironing board out and seal the bags of freshly baked lavosh and every week the basket was emptied.
Back then, entertaining plates held Jatz crackers and we aspired to the black box of imported Carrs water crackers. The market has changed incredibly since then.
So, it was as if the restaurant was our trial market. We gave it a shot supplying hamper companies and food service distributors. The very early days of distribution saw us delivering 30 packets per week to a Sydney distributor.
In 1997, we took a stand at Australian Fine Food. We were then juggling a function centre, catering, and baking lavosh in
the down time of the
local bakehouse. It
was like a hobby and
we really didn’t know if it had any future.
We invested $3500 on a last-minute stand in the back corner of the show, dressed it with coloured materials and set out to discover what we didn’t know about our customers and the market. A Coles concept store manager came along and said, “love your product, but the packaging won’t work”.
We developed it from there and this decision is why we sit in Australian pantries today.
These days we bake and pack 756,000 pieces per day in a 528 square metre plant.
Q
Secondly: Get a draft budget.
We were under capitalised – the banks wouldn’t back a couple with a dream in the early days, so the plans that were set in place changed rapidly, stunting our ability to grow as quickly as we would have liked to.
brought their brand Lavoche to the market. After the initial shock of thinking we were dead in the water, we dug deep and found a way through.
We put a note inside the packet advising our customers that we were in for a ‘David and Goliath’ battle – we never named the company – we just
8 | Food&Drink business | January-February 2020 | www.foodanddrinkbusiness.com.au
What did you wish you had
Tell us about the
company today?
asked them to support us. We out-sold the big brand and remained on the shelf. Resilience, grit, determination and the ability to fight is what got us through.
Q
Yes, absolutely, plenty! In 2012, we nearly lost the business. At 19 years in, I didn’t think we would make it to 20 years.
It was the deepest, darkest time in the business.
known when starting out? What would you advise start-ups today?
I think two important things. Firstly: Write yourself an exit strategy. You don’t have to execute it but it sure gives you a goal. I remember asking ‘when would we know if we had a mature brand?’ What I should have asked was ‘what will we do when we have a mature brand?’.
Have there been
any low points?
“ We know our product is loved and it sets us up for ensuring we deliver to our customers a high standard of quality product. For us, that reflects as if we were there with them when they serve it to their friends and family.”
Q
Today, the team of 40 prides itself on baking lavosh as if it was being served in the restaurant. We know our product is loved and it sets us up for ensuring we deliver to our customers a high standard of quality product. For us, that reflects as if we were there with them when they serve it to their friends and family.
In 2004, we were challenged in the FMCG space as Arnott’s