Provenance of Ingredients
We honestly believe the reason our products taste so good is because of the local ingredients we include. We believe that when you support the local community – either on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland or Australia, they will support you.
We are very glad to support local industry where possible, especially when they are family owned, 100% Australian and world class in what they provide us.
BANANAS
When you sell more than 20 million slices of Banana Bread in a year, you need to trust the bananas are going to be brilliant.
We use 4.5 million Bananas each year that have been sourced from the tropical banana-growing regions of northern Queensland, mainly around Tully and Innisfail, where more than 90% of Australia’s bananas are grown. All fresh bananas available in Australia are locally grown. There are no imports due to the threat pests and disease would pose to our local farms.
The bananas The Country Chef Bakery Co. use aren’t just delicious, they’re also extremely nutritious. Bananas are bursting with goodness and nutrition to keep you full of energy all day long as they are packed with natural carbohydrates, vitamin B6 and potassium – a balanced blend of goodness that makes them ideal for restoring tired muscles and boosting bored brains. They’re also great for tuning up your nervous system by providing 15% of your daily B6 needs for nerve function.
We buy our Bananas from a North Queensland family owned farm and processor. This helps us maintain a consistent supply, support an Australian business – just like ours – and take delivery of the world’s best bananas in as little as one week from harvest.
SUGAR
One of the major ingredients in our signature pavlova is sugar. But not just any sugar. The Country Chef Bakery Co. has been buying from Bundaberg Sugar for 12 years and buys over 550 tonnes each year as a core ingredient for the pavlova range.
Bundaberg Sugar is one of Australia’s largest cane growers and owns and operates sugar mills in Queensland and is Bonsucro® certified for sustainable sugar production and proudly supplies 100% Bundaberg sourced sugar.
Each crushing season in Queensland around 1,200 mechanical cane harvesters cut approximately 33 million tonnes of cane from about 440,000 hectares. Cane is delivered either by cane railway or road to 23 sugar mills.
“The quality we get from Bundaberg Sugar is superb as it has that extra ingredient that is hard to see – Queensland sunshine” said Lloyd Bartlett, Managing Director of Country Chef.
EGGS
There really is an art to creating the perfect pavlova. The balance of the ingredients and the careful handling once baked are critical to producing with scale one of Australia’s favourite desserts.
We create over 8 million serves of Pavlova each year and are still coming up with ways to improve on perfection with innovation in shapes, sizes, packaging and flavours.
We source our eggs from Pace Farm – a 100% Australian, family owned and operated company. We have been sourcing from Pace for many years, who supply many national and international hotels, restaurants, food manufacturers and family kitchens. Their farms are regularly subject to independent audits to ensure their compliance with national and international accreditation schemes. Pace are a HACCP environment, undertake government accredited salmonella monitoring and are Egg Corp Assured, which is Australia’s national egg quality assurance scheme.