Four young men from Canberra are establishing the Barbell Foods name as one that meets the call of organic, high protein and convenience trends with an air dried meat snack. Doris Prodanovic writes.
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.
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.
Co-founder Tom Hutchison told Food & Drink Business about Barbell’s evolution from idea to business.
“Biltong is a South African staple and when Rory and Luke migrated from South Africa to Australia in their teens, they noticed a lot of culture, climate and sport were similar but biltong consumption wasn’t.”
Rory’s work as a personal trainer showed him how his time-poor clients needed a healthy, refuelling snack.
Seeing a gap in the market, he started making biltong for clients and friends.
“From the guilt-free desktop snack for the white collar professional, to the savoury lunchbox snack for the kids, you don’t necessarily need to be a fitness fanatic for our biltong to benefit you,” Hutchison says.
The factory fit
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.
Instead they turned to the idea of a food factory with machinery to meet rising demand, as well as pass on steak cutting to the robots.
