Andrews Meat makes food for foodies

No customer is too large or too small for the family-run business, now in partnership with JBS Australia.

That partnership, forged in mid-2014, has seen Andrews Meat industries’ market share only increase – and fast.

Andrews Meat chief executive Peter Andrews Jnr, who runs the company his father Peter started in 1960 with his brothers Michael (operations) and Harry (administration), says the JBS partnership has seen a growth in exports of 116 per cent, servicing 20 countries, “with many more to come”.

“JBS really embraced our culture, staff and our management style,” he said.

“For a family business to fit into a global business it has been very good.

“They see this business is working and know how to grow the business and back our ideas.

“The transition was easy, the harmonisation was easy.

 “It’s been a learning curve on both sides – we’re learning to fit into a global structure and they like our niche business and what we manage to do successfully.

“We could see they could accelerate us in two to three years instead of six.”

“But we still regard ourselves as a family business.”

Mr Andrews said there hadn’t been much change but JBS gave Andrews Meat a lot of back-end support.

“There’s a very strong senior team at JBS, with a strong corporate office,” he said. “That allowed us to sink our teeth into the business further, in terms of growth and vision.

“We’re very progressive and want to keep growing.

“We’re not all JBS-funded; we’re as vested in it as they are – we’re partners with JBS and as liable as they are.”

Andrews Meat markets many JBS brands, and other suppliers who have been faithful to the business.

“JBS has high quality brands they want in good hands,” he said.

“We were able to bring to the table our Wagyu products (Shiro Kin Fullblood and Tajima Crossbred). They’ve embraced that and they help us with livestock, feedlots. It’s helped us grow fast.

“We’ve got very much a niche operation exporting our Wagyu program and JBS see us as experts in that area.

“We like their ‘farmer-assured’ program, Great Southern, and their Shorthorn program, Thousand Guineas. We play a very strong role in the food services market and with chefs pushing towards pasture-fed, it ticks all the boxes.

“We see JBS as leading the market in that area.”

Andrews Meat’s core business is quality controlled, branded fresh meat.

The business meets every high-end benchmark.

“We’re very passionate about the growth of the fresh meat business. It’s where our heart is and it grows at an annual rate of 20pc.”

Countless big name chefs have stamped their approval on Andrews Meat, such as Neil Perry, Tetsuya, Guillaume, Peter Gilmore and Pete Evans.

In fact, Andrews Meat’s cooked food arm – Creative Food Solutions – now has a Pete Evans’ Paleo line of products.

The business specialises in value-added, cryovac heat-and-eat dishes, including halal, cooked using a ‘sous-vide’ method in giant water baths.

It is also growing exponentially, supplying Woolworths, Aldi and Metcash (IGA) on the retail side, as well as Qantas, P&O, pubs, clubs and industry – even the Australian Defence Force – on the food services side.

“It’s all about choice and variety, and not just what we want to sell,” Mr Andrews said.

Operating on a 20,000 square metre purpose-built site in Sydney and employing 250 workers, many of them long-time employees, the business is a hygienic, hive of activity.

A tour through the site with Mr Andrews and head chef Peter Cox, decked out head to toe in appropriate safety and health gear, is an eye-opener.

Handwashing and gumboot cleaning facilities greet staff at every entrance to every room in the factory.

Numbers as mind-boggling as the supersized cooking facilities roll off both men’s tongues.

The cold store takes 3000 pallets; the business processes 800 tonnes of product a month, all 100pc traceable to supplier and producers; about 100 people work in the processing room; one saucepan can boil half a tonne of carrots in seven minutes; the flame grill can cook 6000 steaks an hour (a bit rarer than medium rare as they are then cryovaced); 24 tanks that cook the food in water work to within 1/10th of a degree of accuracy; the water is chilled very quickly going from 77 degrees to 12 degrees in 10 minutes down to -3 degrees in two hours.

But it’s the people who make the operation hum. And it’s clear people like working for Andrews Meat.

Mr Andrews is on first name terms with everybody and they smile when they greet him. He says every employee gets a cooked meal each day.

He knows what they do, having started on the packing room floor at 19, although he and his brothers had worked in the business every school holidays.

They continue to push the boundaries of innovation. Their R&D kitchen is staffed by master chefs such as Ian Hill, who brainstorm new recipes to meet the needs of the diverse clientele. And they are winning recognition, with a swag of Sydney Fine Food Awards too.

“The team has to think quick on their feet to come up with other cuts that might be popular overseas,” Mr Andrews said. “The nature of the food services market is every customer is a different relationship with different needs. It’s all about relationships, trust, service, consistency and quality.

“They have different requirements and it makes the business more complicated but we strive to be in front of the market.”

He said sometimes the chefs in the R&D kitchen were inspired by their celebrity clients.

“Our clients on the fresh and cooked sides can come in and play with the products in our new kitchen,” he said.