Page 23 - Food & Drink Business Nov-Dec 2019

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Dairy-free vegan products
ring bells ‘down under’
Dairy-Free Down Under is the classic overnight success story that was years of trial and error in the making.
FOR Jenny and Kevin Flanagan it was simple: any new products and business had to reflect their ideals, and they wanted to work with people who shared the same principles.
Having run their value-added fresh-produce business since the mid 1980s, the couple were looking to diversify.
After meticulous R&D they developed a range of dairy-free vegan products.
The Flanagans tested their vegan cheese in the market at the 2017 Naturally Good expo.
“We were blown away by the interest we received in the products, but people really didn’t like the packaging,” Kevin Flanagan said.
“It looked like we were onto something, so we came back
and rethought the name, the packaging, and so on.”
After a year of reworking, they returned to Naturally Good with an organic-looking package under the new label of Dairy-Free Down Under for
their initial vegan cheese.
“We got absolutely smashed!
We had five people on the stand for two days and didn’t even have a chance to go and get a water. It was just crazy.
“We got interest even from people overseas wanting to know about us, yet before that, we were struggling to get distributors; no-one really wanted to talk to us. That show was a turning point.”
The brand officially launched in March 2018 and six months later it had grown ten-fold.
In November, they won the Gold Coast Business Excellence Award for Emerging Business.
Organic look: Dairy-Free Down Under vegan cheese packaging has made a difference to sales.
Dairy-Free Down Under now has more than a dozen SKUs, and Kevin is “constantly coming up with more”.
As well as soy-based cheddar and mozzarella styles, the Flanagans have created almond-based cheeses and coconut-based cheeses “because some people don’t like soy, and we want to fill the gap that’s there and hopefully make lots of people happy”.
Cheeses come in blocks, slices and spreads, and products also include ready-to-eat cheese-and-cracker combinations.
There are also a sour cream, mayonnaise and aioli-style products, and earlier this year they launched a coconut cheese. ✷
Towering success: Pat and Stick’s ice cream sandwiches.
Sandwiched goodness
From two friends having a go to one of Australia’s premier ice cream companies, Pat and Stick’s Homemade Ice Cream Co is on the cusp of a whole new era.
FOR an engineer, Stick Seach makes great ice cream. In a plant he has literally built himself, every week Seach and his team produce 30,000 ice cream sandwiches to distribute all around the country. His current goal is to double that.
Ice cream was not really part of Seach’s life plan but his friend, Pat Monnot changed that. Monnot was studying commercial ice cream manufacturing in the
US and wanted to make ice cream sandwiches.
“He didn’t know where to start, so I told him to ‘just make some ice cream’, work out how to sell it and then test it out on the weekend,” Seach says.
At his own loose end, Seach helped out and Pat and Stick’s was born.
The two did everything themselves for many years, making 800 ice creams “in a big week”. Today, the company has a dozen staff and makes 800 ice creams in 20 minutes.
The only thing that has changed is the equipment. While refining and perfecting the original product Monnot had in mind, Seach was also developing the equipment to produce it.
While he is “technically” now an ice cream man, Seach says he is more of an engineer than when he left university.
“We modify and design machines from scratch to do exactly what we need,” he says.
It is a point of pride for him that Pat and Stick’s ice creams look exactly as they’re shown on the pack.
About one fifth of the company’s sales are in food service. The company supplies Qantas business and first
class. International first class receives a bespoke ice-cream sandwich based on a Neil
Perry Rockpool dessert with
a sesame caramel lace cookie that is half dipped in chocolate.
The business also contract manufactures vegan ice- cream sandwiches. ✷
www.foodanddrinkbusiness.com.au | November-December 2019 | Food&Drink business | 23
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