Page 25 - Food&Drink Nov-Dec 2020

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Owning the night
From a local custom to a business opportunity, Bae Juice is bringing wellness to the liquor store.
Packaging queen
With the warmth of wool, Planet Protector Packaging founder Joanne Howarth is helping eliminate polystyrene from the planet.
ECO-FRIENDLY packaging business Planet Protector Packaging started in late 2016 with the mission to eliminate polystyrene in cold chain packaging by using sheep wool waste in its place.
It has since replaced the equivalent of 5.2 million polystyrene boxes from landfill, and the rapid growth of the business has seen accounts such as DHL, Blackmores and Unilever added to the customer portfolio.
Armed with around 20 years of experience in the seafood and retail industries, as well as in food logistics, Planet Protector founder Joanne
FOR the three-piece team at Bae Juice, it is all about “wellness after badness” with their hangover remedy, backed not only by science, but distributors, including Dan Murphy’s and FoodWorks. Tim O’Sullivan, Sumin Do and Liam Gostencnik started Bae Juice in May 2019 with less than $5000 between them and a goal to provide a hangover remedy in convenienty 120 millilitre packs. The remedy is simple – 100 per cent Korean pear juice.
“Korean pear has an enzyme that speeds up the metabolism and detoxification of alcohol in the body. Our product is a natural juice with no added sugars and fits perfectly into the wellness trend that’s booming at the moment,” Gostencniksays.
Bae Juice is entirely produced and packaged in Naju, South Korea. Gostencnik, O’Sullivan and Do are all based in Melbourne but have frequent communication with their manufacturer. “It’s important for us at this stage to keep
educating people about the Korean pear, and having the credibility of the product being sourced directly from South Korea,” says Gostencnik. “South Korea and Australia have a great relationship and we’re all about supporting trade across both countries. We want to lean on this relationship and make sure we’re all benefiting from it, especially as Bae Juice continues to grow.”
Since launching, more than 20,000 units of Bae Juice have been sold online alone and is stocked in around 50 cafés, grocery stores and bottle shops along the east coast.
Since October, Bae Juice has been stocked in 900 Woolworths stores Australia-wide, and is the biggest retail deal the team has signedtodate. ✷
The hustle and bustle of the biltong business
Four men from Canberra are establishing Barbell Foods as a brand meeting the call for organic, high protein convenience with an air-dried meat snack.
Howarth was determined to find a solution to keep food fresh in the supply chain without the need for packing in polystyrene.
“Wool is the best insulator on the planet – it keeps sheep warm in winter and cool in summer. We’ve created a patented technology where the blend of the fibres that gives wool its thermal performance can be used,” she says.
Planet Protector offers a range of applications to help customise packaging solutions. A gel ice is “snuggled” into the wool liners, which are made from 100 per cent natural wool and can be used for composting.
In June, Howarth won the Cartier Women’s Initiative for the South Asia and Oceania region, making her the first Australian winner since the launch of the global initiative in 2006.
She now has sights set on expansion into Tasmania to secure the state with the title as the first polystyrene-free stateinthecountryby2023. ✷
THE hustle at Canberra’s local markets each weekend was not an uncommon practice for the Barbell Foods team in 2017.
Not only were they carpooling to the markets, they were also
living in a share house, and manufacturing their own snack products in a small, 80-square metre commercial kitchen space together.
Brothers Luke and Rory Rathbone and their friends Matt Laing and Tom Hutchison are four young men in the business of biltong – an air-dried steak snack, made from organic beef.
In its first year, the production of Barbell Foods was a manual mission for the men. Cutting, hanging and packing the steaks was a massive undertaking as it was all done by hand. Hutchison says the team looked to outsource the process but realised they did not want a contract manufacturer
to look after the production. Now, the Barbell Foods team
has upgraded to a 450-square metre factory in the Canberra suburb of Hume, and is set to expand its distribution around the country. The company’s new facility, built by RMR Process, complete with purpose-built drying room, has led to an eight-fold increase in production capacity and a 60 per cent reduction in labour costs. The Barbell team is continuing to shift the perception of its air-dried steak snacks from being a foreign concept, to a convenient snack food option full of benefits that go beyond its naturally high proteinform. ✷
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