With Tobie Puttock on Board, Streat Expands Its Food Waste Fight

Most visitors to Streat only see part of the story – the coffee, the good focaccia and the range of pantry items. But the group of cafes and social enterprise is about something much bigger.

The Melbourne-based organisation, founded by Rebecca Scott and Kate Barrelle in 2010, now runs 11 cafes, a bakery, a roastery, a catering arm and a commercial test kitchen. They’re all designed to offer training and employment pathways for young people (aged 16 to 24) facing disadvantage.

“I’m always amazed how many young people get braver. People who never thought they could work front of house, after lots of experience and practice, realise they can do it,” says Scott. “We now have graduates from the early days who are now running their own hospo businesses and employing other young people.

“You can use hospitality to stop cycles of disadvantage. That’s what keeps us going. That’s what has kept on fuelling us to keep on creating opportunities.”

With the commercial test kitchen at Queen Victoria Market, Streat has given focus to a different, but related, issue. “There’s so much waste in hospitality,” says Scott. Here, the goal is to transform food that would otherwise go to waste into meals and products – and to build a more circular, sustainable hospitality system.

The test kitchen is part of the Moving Feast Kitchen network, a collaboration between Streat and other social enterprises including Open Food Network and Collingwood Children’s Farm, started in 2020. Leading the Moving Feast Kitchen is celebrity chef Tobie Puttock, who joined as Innovation Chef in May.

Puttock works on a range of initiatives that aim to reduce food waste and food insecurity. When Broadsheet visits, the former Fifteen chef is making chiko rolls from discarded market cabbage and pairing it with nasturtium hot sauce, which incorporates poblano peppers, jalapeno, brown rice koji and cooked-down nasturtium petals.

“My role with Streat is super creative. It’s extra attractive to me because we can divert product that will otherwise go into landfill. It fills lots of buckets,” says the chef.

The fruit of his labour is available from Streat’s Queen Victoria Market cafe – at the top of the market’s Purpose Precinct. The cafe stocks pickles, ferments and zero-waste products. Plus, Puttock hosts events such as sustainable supper clubs where he prepares zero-waste meals for up to 12 diners, and workshops where the chef teaches participants how to turn into meals produce that’s on the edge of going bad.

Streat Queen Victoria Market Cafe
Purpose Precinct, Queen Victoria Market
F Sheds, Shop 26–27 Peel Street, Melbourne

streat.com.au