From food chemistry to corporate chef: Bega Foodservice’s Caroline Westmore
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Bega Foodservice Corporate chef caroline westmore
Caroline Westmore is one of a relatively rare breed in Australia – she is a corporate chef, having recently taken on that role at Bega Foodservice following a stint of several years at McCain Foods.
Foodservice Rep spoke to Caroline for insights into how her past work experience equipped her with the skillset to take on this interesting role and found that her background is not that of the typical chef’s journey but embraces some interesting twists and turns.
“I’ve always loved cooking, but I actually started off studying food chemistry and biology at Melbourne University but then decided I didn’t like the straight science of it – I wanted my work to relate to something more real. I took a year off and went and worked in hospitality and found I really enjoyed it, so I swapped over to food science and majored in food and textile chemistry.”
“There I was at 20, running their culinary department”
That led Caroline initially to work in the corporate environment. “My first corporate job was with Australian Dairy Corporation,” she recalls, “and almost immediately they did a major restructure – there were four of us in the department and I was the newest and cheapest, so they let go of the other three and kept me. So there I was at 20, running their culinary department, which was sort of odd, but it led me into different positions in dairy and eventually into food styling and journalism.”
From cookbook writer to TV food producer
The journalism work included ghost writing cookbooks for celebrity chefs – “That’s how a lot of the publishing houses used to approach it; they had well-known chefs who had great ideas but didn’t quite know how to translate them into properly formatted written recipes, so I would do that.”
Some TV stints followed, including cooking on Bert Newton and Denise Drysdale’s shows, and a season as a food producer on Channel 9’s Great Australian Bake Off. “Then I joined the team at Nandos as head of food for Australia and New Zealand for four and a half years, and that was probably my most fun job ever,” Caroline says. “I got to do heaps of stuff in the UK and I also went to South Africa and Mozambique where they had a chilli farming operation which was really interesting.
Nando’s co-founders Fernando Duarte (left) and Robert Brozin (right)
“The two founders of Nandos, Robbie and Fernando, are really nice people and they did some amazing things. One weekend we had finished up on the Friday and Robbie sent me on a two day African safari – he said “I hope you don’t mind camping” and a helicopter picked me up for a $10,000 a night ‘glamping’ experience!”
“I understand not only the workings of a commercial kitchen and back of house but I also get the manufacturing side, the retail launching and FMCG side and the foodservice side”
Following this, Caroline freelanced for many different companies – “I had a longterm contract with Bosch, doing their cooking classes, and was working with organisations like the Mushroom Growers Association. I then went to McCormick Foods, which is the world’s largest producer of herbs and spices, initially part time and got the opportunity to work in the Asia Pacific region, as well as with their Baltimore team in the US who at the time were creating their inaugural Flavour Forecast which was one of the first trend-tracking information guides in foodservice.”
Spending seven years with McCormick Foods gave Caroline valuable insight into the manufacturing side of the food business as well as the opportunity to work with QSRs and retail customers. “McCormick was really big across all those sectors, and that experience stood me in good stead for what was to come in my career – I understand not only the workings of a commercial kitchen and back of house but I also get the manufacturing side, the retail launching and FMCG side and the foodservice side. And that skillset is the kind of expertise a corporate chef needs.”
Part of a small, exclusive group
Caroline’s first corporate chef role was at McCain Foods, making her part of a small, exclusive group which also includes Simplot Australia’s David White, Nestle Professional’s Elke Travers and Rational Australia’s Andrew Ballard (all interviewed on the subject in our article in issue 131).
“We all know each other, it’s like we’re in a little club together,” Caroline acknowledges, a comment echoed by her peers in the preceding article. “It’s a small club but it’s a nice club to be in and we tend to circle around each other.”
Full circle back into foodservice
Having recently moved from McCain Foods to Bega Foodservice, Caroline says her new corporate chef role “has almost taken me full circle back into foodservice – there was some foodservice focus at McCain, but I also did a lot with their R&D team and innovation group, so I was working across a variety of channels. My role at Bega Foodservice is primarily to engage with our foodservice customers and support the sales and foodservice teams.”
“Bega Foodservice has been doing a great job on the innovation front”
Caroline is excited about the opportunities offered by her current position. “Bega Foodservice has been doing a great job on the innovation front, focusing on foodservice and creating some highly specialised products like Dairy Farmers Cooking Cream, which is designed to perform under high temperatures and not split or separate when you add acid such as lemon or vinegar. Another example is Dairy Farmers Express Professional Cream Cheese, which is designed to be ready to use as soon as you take it out of the fridge – you don’t need to wait for it to soften, it’s highly pliable and has a neutral flavour. It’s a great example of a product innovation which can really benefit the foodservice operator, because it means you can have just one product in your kitchen for multiple applications – you can use it in a savoury dip, you can add a little sugar and pipe it into a casing, you can add eggs and make a cheesecake with it. It’s a terrific product with a flavour and texture that’s truly unique.
“I’m looking forward to working with the R&D team and testing products”
“These are foodservice-specific products and my goal is to make sure foodservice operators know about them, understand why they’ve been created, how good they are and how using them can benefit your business.
“We need to be communicating all these points because otherwise you might see a product like Dairy Farmers Express Professional Cream Cheese in a catalogue and assume ‘oh, it’s just another cream cheese’ when that’s not the case at all.”
Excited to be back in dairy
Still relatively new to the role, Caroline also anticipates her responsibilities may grow over time: “I’d like to be able to contribute to some ideation of what’s missing in the market currently – I’m looking forward to working with the R&D team and testing products and so on.
“And I’m very excited to be back in dairy products again, which I haven’t been for a long time. Foodservice itself is fun – I love a good trade show and I am delivering a presentation this Friday and another in Queensland next week to different foodservice distributors; it’s great getting out there in front of people and talking about product benefits, because I really am passionate about good food.”
“You never know which job is going to lead you to another”
Asked what advice she would give to others wanting to pursue a career as a corporate chef, Caroline says: “I would say take every opportunity possible, because you never know which job is going to lead you to another and where you might end up. I don’t think I ever said no to anything, even if it didn’t seem exactly in line with what I wanted to do – I thought ‘maybe it will lead to something else down the track’.
“One time I was asked to go on a trip to Sri Lanka as a florist, all of things. I was hired by a company that sold Australian produce and they said ‘We don’t really need food styling done, but we do need flowers arranged’ so I ended up going as the chief florist and once I was there I was working nights on the restaurant buffets, doing shifts with the chefs and I ended up working at the Hilton there.
“As a direct result of that experience I then got the opportunity to fly to Singapore every second year to style a banquet for 500 people celebrating the Food and Hospitality Asia Young Chef Apprentice of the Year – we were building massive floor to ceiling walls of produce, it was great fun and it all grew out of one trip to Sri Lanka to style flowers!
“Often really interesting things come out of experiences that you just can’t anticipate. You never know what contacts you’re going to meet, so always stay open and curious.”
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