WHO IS SUZY SPOON?

I’m Suzy Spoon and I’ve been passionate about vegan cooking for 29 years. I started making vegan sausages and meat alternatives at home for my family and friends because the vegan products available in supermarkets were highly processed, with no flavour and often a lot of food miles. So I created a range of vegan meat alternatives using lovely fresh produce and real ingredients, instead of numbers. I put an emphasis on flavour, which sets my products apart from the ones in the supermarket.

My friends and work colleagues loved my products. I even tried them out on actor Tobey Maguire while working as his personal chef when he was in Sydney shooting The Great Gatsby.  Tobey and my friends were very encouraging and I started to sell my vegan sausages and burger patties at a local farmers’ market every Sunday.

That was four years ago and now I employ a team of 11 great people who are passionate about animal rights and social justice issues. Each member brings a different set of skills to the team, but one important common thread we share is a dedication to producing delicious, healthy food for the community without exploiting animals, people or the environment. 

WHAT WE DO

We make a range of 12 different vegan products. Garlic and rosemary burger patties, Vienna style schnitzel, Italian herbed veggie balls, Home-style Bolognese, Lasagne,  Seitan pieces, Smokey rasher, Polenta sundried tomato and basil sausage, Kale and cauliflower sausage, Spicy original sausage, Sunday sausage and Smoked chilli sausage.

I created all the recipes from scratch and the team and I have perfected them over time. 

We have a small production room where we make our products, and busy café that show cases those products on the menu (kind of a try before you buy sort of thing)

In 2014 we won an award for Excellence in Innovation from the NSW business chamber, which was a huge honour and a fabulous introduction to many local business owners in our community.

We also won best vegan/vegetarian food Australia wide in the 2014 Foxtel I LOVE FOOD awards. We were so proud to win because it's calculated on votes by customers.

We sell our products a few different ways- Retail and wholesale to the public, catering companies, delis, pubs, cafes and event organisers. We have a distributer who delivers our products to health food stores as far north as Cairns and as far South as Melbourne. And we have an online store where East Coast customers can buy our products online and have them delivered to their home.

Link to Spoon's online shop

We make over 2500 protein-packed meat-free meals per week. The demand for our products is growing every day with customers wanting more stockists and a larger delivery area. But we can’t grow another inch in the space we’re in.

With a busy café and a sausage factory sharing one small cool room there’s a limit to how much we can make because refrigeration is such an important part of safe food production.

SO WE’RE RAISING FUNDS TO MOVE!

Our building lease expires in May so we move or we close. The team and I want to move! So we are raising funds to move to a food production workshop with large walk-in cool rooms and a temperature-controlled production area. 

In the new space we will be able to expand our range of vegan products, helping more people eat less meat.  And increase our production level to meet the ever-growing demand for our regular products –  so we’ll never run out of your favourite Suzy Spoon’s products again.

We will also be able to increase our stockist area to include Adelaide, WA, Tassie and regional areas, so we can share Spoon’s products with a larger community. We are currently in negotiations with a number of independent grocers and plan to have Suzy Spoon's products in independent grocery stores across Australia. 

HOW WILL THE FUNDING BE SPENT?

We can save Suzy Spoon's Vegetarian Butcher if we raise $30,000!

 We will use the money to move and buy much needed equipment such as a bratt pan, steam oven, exhaust extractor, racks and shelving. 

Our cafe can not exist without our food production workshop because thats where we make all the products that are on our menu. We are looking for a space that can house both workshop and cafe but if we can't find an appropriate place we might have to split the 2 parts of the business and have them in separate locations. 

So if we can't find a space big enough for both workshop and cafe then we will firstly re home the food production workshop. Then when our current lease in Newtown ends in May 2016 we will find a new home for our café. We will then have our bond back from the Newtown property and there are many appropriate locations to choose from. And any additional funds we receive will go towards relocating our cafe. 

Please help us make food that nourishes us into the future. Even if you’re not in a position to contribute financially, you can help by talking to people you know about our campaign and sharing it on social media. And if you can, come into the cafe and order our special fundraising burger.

Thank you very much from Suzy and the team. 

QandA

These are actual questions we have been asked in the past week, I hope these answers are helpful.

Aren’t you making heaps of money?

No I am not. It’s harder than it looks to run a small business, especially a food related business. There are so many laws and regulations to comply with.

I understand when customers come in at lunch time on a Saturday it looks like we must be making a bomb but it’s not that simple. Very few businesses see profit in the first few years and most even go bust. We have had our wins and setbacks like any small business but last year we had more than our fare share of building related set backs, fridge breakdowns & a robbery, that have taken their toll on our progress.

Didn’t you know your lease was coming up for renewal?

Yes I did. My long term plan was to renew the lease and keep the café in the space but move the food production area to a little industrial unit somewhere as soon as I could afford it. But the new lease comes with a rent rise I am unable to pay. So I can’t renew the lease and stay.

Surely a big company like yours can pay its own way?

I am a sole trader not a company. I am considered a micro business which is smaller than a small business, and even that is being generous. There is a cost related to becoming a company and I have not yet had the spare $ to make the change. Once my business starts becoming profitable I will change to a company to receive certain tax breaks that are not available to sole traders.

Why don’t you just get a loan?

I was only able to open Suzy Spoon’s Vegetarian Butcher because my partner and I took out a bank loan, which we are still paying off.

What will you do if you don’t raise the funds you need?

I will do what I can, with what I have. My business might need to start from the beginning again with a small kitchen in the suburbs and a weekend market stall.

The products are my priority over my café. So if I can’t find a space for both together I will look for a space for the food production workshop and close the café indefinitely.

Why do you need a food production space why not just open the café?

Suzy Spoon’s Vegetarian Butcher is a food production business, with a café where you can taste the products we make. Without the products I don’t really have a café, because that is what makes my cafe so special and different from other cafes, the menu is made up of the products we make.

There are heaps of empty shops that are really cheap, why can’t you just move into one of them?

It’s not impossible but there are complications.

My funds are limited so the place I move into needs to have a few things so I can make my products safely, hygienically and within the council, Sydney water and NSW health’s regulations. For example cool rooms, floor drains, grease trap and an exhaust extractor. I need 3 phase power, gas and the space needs to be approved by the council for food use.  When I moved into the Newtown property there was no grease trap and it cost $20,000 to have one put in.

Even to open a small café the building needs to have been approved for food use by the council, and if I want to do any cooking at all I need a grease trap and exhaust.

What will you spend the money on?

I am still looking for a space to move to. So it’s hard to know what problems I will face. But I will post regular updates on our progress.

The money will be spent on moving the food production side of the business to a new location. If I can open a café in that location I will. But if I cant I will then look for a space where I can open the café.

At this point we will need roughly $20,000 for the bond on a new building. But we will hopefully get our bond back from our Newtown shop at the end of May.

We need to buy a new Bratt pan which is a giant electric fry pan ($3000 second hand), and a combi steam oven ($4000 second hand). It is unlikely we will be able to afford these new but newer than the ones we have would be great, as I don’t think the ones we have will survive a move.