In recent weeks, most restaurants and cafés have been forced to shut their doors, or significantly change their business models, leaving many favourite local venues closed and thousands of talented staff in the hospitality industry either stood down or without a job.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics reports a staggering 82 per cent of hospitality jobs have been lost since lockdown. To help local businesses doing it tough, Nestlé Professional is lending support to a new industry initiative, Save Our Locals.
Save Our Locals is an online market supporting local cafés and restaurants with an alternative income stream to keep the lights on and staff employed. The initiative supports restaurants by delivering fresh meal kits to home cooks, giving them the opportunity to recreate restaurant-quality dishes at home.
Save Our Locals’ meal kits make inspired results easy to recreate at home, with all the hard work and prep done by chefs to ensure home cooks get results every time, in their own kitchen.
Since lockdown began, Nielsen reportsthere has been a 71 per cent increase in time spent on cooking websites, with young people spending 144 per cent more time following online recipes. The surge in interest represents a great opportunity for businesses to service the demand for quality food created at home.
The insight is what inspired the not-for-profit Save Our Locals campaign, which endeavours to keep restaurants, bistros, bars, cafés and pubs in business despite the wider challenge presented by social distancing restrictions.
“One of our core values at Nestlé Professional is ‘find a way’ and we are living that through the much-needed income that every Save Our Locals meal kit order will bring to local businesses,” says Nestlé Professional CEO Scott Stuckmann.
“There is a whole ecosystem attached to the hospitality industry and it’s heartening to think that together we can step up and make a difference for our valued partners. We’re proud to support Save Our Locals as our way of saying, ‘We are here for you and we always will be’.”
Through the delivery of ready-to-cook meal kits, home cooks can make a great meal and a difference to the hospitality
industry and their local community.
To register your venue, visit saveourlocals.com.au/register
To order as a customer, visit saveourlocals.com.au