Welcome inside We Feed You's kitchen, a busy ecosystem of chefs, fresh ingredients, herbs, spices, other wholefood ingredients and an ongoing stack of dirty dishes, pots and pans – lots of them! Unlike most food production companies, we don't use machines to do the cooking as we believe making a meal by hand results in a far superior final product.
To keep our kitchen running smoothly we rely on the dedication and collaboration of our valued kitchen team led by our world class chefs Dave Roberts and Charlotte Miller.
We also believe in supporting local producers as much as possible as we all know Australia produces some of the best ingredients in the world and there is no need to settle for second best!
In this article we are lifting the lid on how we create our meals from beginning to end so we can keep bringing you the most remarkable and nutritious ready-made meals in Melbourne!
Recipe Development
Our Chefs Charlotte and Dave develop all the recipes from scratch. With over 30 years of professional cooking experience between them, Dave and Charlotte love running their own business to create remarkable and nutritious meals for their customers. Each brings a very different and unique experiences to the kitchen.
Charlotte is a professionally trained chef and an experienced Accredited Practising Dietitian, and ensures our meals are nutritious. She thrives on using seasonal produce, wholefoods and nutrient dense ingredients.
Dave has worked at Melbourne’s iconic MoVida Restaurant for 7 years as Head Chef and brings a very different perspective to the kitchen. He is used to the pressure of a fast moving kitchen, using the best produce he can source to create remarkable combinations of flavours and textures, and building a high performing kitchen team that delivers seven days per week!
So Dave and Charlotte work tirelessly behind the scenes testing new recipes until they create something they both agree is remarkable and nutritious. With our meals being low fat, low salt and low sugar – and catering for a wide range of dietary needs - it’s testament to their combined experience that they can create such a great tasting menu that can be enjoyed by everyone.
Meal Testing
Once a meal has been designed it is tested by the extended team, including friends, family and many of our regular customers. All feedback is valuable and the more critical the better. This feedback helps us to decide if the meal makes it on to the menu as is or requires further refinement.
Scaling Up
Once approved, the meal needs to be cooked to scale. It’s far easier to create a meal for one or even ten people but scaling a meal up and cooking in batches of 100 or more is very different. You cannot simply multiply everything by 100 for example.
To get the right balance of nutrients, flavour and texture at scale, we adopt a very thorough testing process. You can waste a lot of produce and time at this point with inexperienced chefs but with Dave and Charlotte onboard we get this right pretty quickly!
So once the recipe is refined to scale it’s approved for the kitchen team to start cooking!
Cooking Your Meals
Our chefs check all the ingredients when they arrive in our kitchen. Ingredients typically arrive early in the morning on the days we are cooking to ensure they are as fresh as possible. No ingredient enters the kitchen unless our chefs are 100% satisfied with the quality of the produce, and we have ditched suppliers in the past that have been unable to meet our standards.
Every meal is a team effort. From chopping vegetables, mixing spices, making sauces or slow-cooking our meat, our chefs work together to create our meals and continually test the flavour and texture every step of the way. Making meals by hand is far more labour intensive than machinery cooking but the final outcome is far superior. Just like cooking at home or in a high-end restaurant, there are no hidden nasties added and a lot of care is taken to ensure the outcome of our meals is remarkable and nutritious.
This process of hand-making our meals continues right through to packaging, rather than employing machines to churn out portions which can bruise ingredients. Once all aspects of the meal are ready, the ingredients get measured out to the individual meal trays. This is done with precision and care to ensure the final meal you receive looks and tastes as it should and is consistent every time! The final step is to seal the tray then lock in all the nutrients through freezing.
We Feed You's Award Winning Chinese Spiced Lamb
with Green Veggies, Peanuts, Brown Rice
We laugh when we read from competitors ‘you’ll never eat frozen again.’ We think you deserve frozen! As our chef Dave explains “freezing is a natural method of preserving food which has been tried and tested for centuries. I believe it is the most natural approach and far better than using additives, preservative or gases to prolong shelf life. Frozen also provides the ultimate convenience and locks in the nutrients the same day we cook our meals. Frozen is often fresher than fresh!”
