This is a compilation of notes from 2006 crew and 2008 crew.
Contact kristy (06 food crew) - kristy.walters@gmail.com
or annika (08 food crew)

Role of the Food WG
- Organise the food for the conference - source from suppliers/caterers
- Organise a kitchen/preparing/serving area
- Plan a menu catering to vegan & gluten free diets
- Figure out volunteer system in the kitchen
- Organise a wash up station (potentially in logistics WG)

Number of People
In 2006 we had 2 organisers – which meant a lot of work for us but also made it much easier/quicker to make decisions & adapt to situations
In 2008 i think it was also 2 core people.
What we did
In 2006
* We hired a kitchen at one of the residential colleges to use for the week. They insisted that one of their staff be there at all times – which turned out to be incredibly helpful. They were amazing. Having the kitchen was amazing – it was an industrial sized one usually catering to 800 or so students. This meant it had everything we needed – pots, pans, knives, cooking implements, large toasters, a couple of serving bain maries, trays for serving in, a steamer that cooked rice!! Plus lots of bench space, storage space etc.
* We planned the menu – figuring out quantities for everything
* Sourced food - buying non-fresh stuff through food co-ops that we had connections with. A few trips to Coles & bread from elsewhere too.
* We got all our fruit & veg produce from Food Connect a CSA (community supported agriculture project), which meant it was all local and mostly organic
* We hired cold rooms as cold room in the kitchen we had was being resurfaced.

From 2008
* We had the Hari Krishna’s come in for two of the dinners, which was great as it is quite a big job.
The organising collective decided to go with vegan, and organic, with Gluten free options. Our organic principles were..
- try get organic local
- or try for just local
* We wrote the menu, and then were approached by Phil, from a shop in Newcastle called Hunter organics. He offered to do all the food sourcing and delivery for us, for 10% of the cost.
We took him up on the offer, and it was the best decision we made, as he had so many contacts, for local organic honey, oranges etc…. And knew the organic markets and dry good suppliers in Sydney like the back of his hand.
He was driving to Sydney anyway, twice a week for his shop, so we worked out our quantities for two separate fresh food deliveries. Having Phil on board was great as he had knowledge on products, so for example if cous cous was unavailable, he recommended quinwa. Plus he knew prices, and what good value was, and where we could save money.
So from our end we
- wrote menu
- made a contract with Phil
- made an excel spreadsheet to calculate our quantities of individual items
- FRESH food: worked out what we want delivered on what day, one delivery was Thursday, the other Monday. Phil got it and delivered it all.
- DRY food: Gave Phil total quantities and he got it all in the week before SOS, and delivered it.
Phil did
- Heaps of running around for us, and because he had the organic shop in town, he could get us Gluten free bread when we ran out.
- - Things to think about

* Volunteers
If you’re a kitchen coordinator of food and cooking, you need someone else to be organising the volunteers.
You’ll need a couple of different shifts – Prep, Serving & Cleaning for each meal – put times and where they should meet. Try to co-ordinate with workshop times so people can slot it into their day. Probably at 6 for each prep, serving & clean up – aside from breakfast which would be less.
We had a copy of the food vollies for each day so if they didn’t turn up we could call the volunteer co-ordinator or the rego desk and ask them to call the people who weren’t there by finding their number in the rego database.

* Food
- Make sure you have lots of protein – being cold and thinking for days on end takes lots of energy!
- In 2006 we had over catered and probably over-estimated serving sizes. Maybe ask someone who deals with mass quantities to look over your menu.
- Variation!! Yay celebrate the diversity.
- Spreads, and nuttlex for breakfast, don’t forget
- We made our own sweet chilli sauce, it was a real hit!
- The tahini sauce was very popular too.
- Lots of fruit for snacks
- Bread, find your sources early. Check whether it is vegan and gluten free options – ask if they can deliver – ideally twice during the week.
- We didn’t make our own muesli in the end, it was virtually the same to buy it bulk
- We didn’t make soy milk either, though people have before. It’s a big operation, there is info on the net.
- We considered making cakes and muffins etc, but weren’t organised enough, as we didn’t know what the chai tent kitchen was going to be like for oven space. If you have access to a good kitchen at uni, then it would be so easy to make anzac bikkies etc daily. Use Volunteers
- Porridge was great for breakky. A real favourite in the cold weather.

• Facilities
Couple of options here -
o Hire a kitchen and cook yourself - could pay chefs/cook and use the vollies. Issues with this option – need an industrial/commercial kitchen with equipment – we hired one of the college kitchens and pretty much had free range of it for the week. That particular college was associated with Rotary so has a community help bent. This option we save you loads of money but will be a lot more stressful.
o Hire caterers to cook– find a business/es that suits your ethical and financial wants and let them do the work – will be expensive but generally less hassle. We considered this option but using a variety of caterers – many businesses heard about the conference through the food co-op at Griffith Uni and asked if they could cook the food. In the end this presented more problems than we thought it was worth. Eg the Hare Krishna wanted to cater but we learned that quite a lot of people have problems with their philosophies to the point where they wouldn’t eat their food.
o Create a mobile kitchen – Newcastle 08 attached one to the Chai Tent with BBQs. Perth 07 hired ovens and a kitchen tent with walls, floors etc. Check with your local council what the health regulations are for doing this.
- BBQ’s…. we used 3-4 at a time to cook burgers and tofu etc, as we had no kitchen facility, other than the one oven in the chai tent. If you use bbq’s, factor in the cost of gas, and the time needed to refill the bottles.
- We had a mobile cool room, and it was so valuable. It cost $400 for the week. I recommend.
- You need access to lots of pots, and you really need some giant 60Litre ones. Lots of chopping boards and knives. Containers to put things prepped earlier or to store leftovers.

- - Systems - - -
The more you have written on signs around the kitchen the more people can help you. In 2006 we had daily menus up with instructions on how to cook it – what needed to be done first, how much etc. Also we borrowed scales from one of the co-ops to weigh things.
Need to think ahead about your clean up plan. Once lunch or dinner is served, there needs to be a clear routine written up preferably, of what the cleaning volunteers need to do & when they should start, so you can walk away!!!
You may be cooking all day, and it’s way tiring to have to coordinate and delegate cleaning up on top of that.
Breakfast: Have 2-5 people fully briefed for breakfast set up, serving and clean up, so that you as a main organiser don’t have to do it. Your days will be too long. In 2008 we were at a kitchen off site every day at 4:30am cooking (!), so having an elite breakfast team, who could share the role between them was ace!!! One less thing to think about.
- - Servings
- - Make more than you need. It can go in the cool room if left over, and go out on a table at night for late snacks. It will get eaten!
- Always put some food aside before you serve the main mob, for organisers, vollies, and people who turn up late.
- The more food the better. Servings need to be big, and hearty. We skimped on our serves, thinking we’d run out, and the idea was that people could come for seconds, once everyone had eaten firsts. But we didn’t really communicate that to the mob, as the plan, and people felt they weren’t getting enough. FEED EM’ UP WELL!
HYGEINE
- Super importance. Set up signs and a vollie handwash, with a NAILBRUSH, and people touching food must scrub under their nails. This is important because there were porta loos at SOS, and NO real hand washing facility for after taking a crap! This is the reason so many people get sick at SoSs.
- Washing plates…. We had tubs, for washing individual plates. A rinse, wash and final rinse. We were concerned about communicable diseases, so rang the health dept, and they recommended using a light chlorine in the water. Some peeps smelt it and freaked out etc, but it was so valuable. It smelt like chlorine, but was no different from the stuff in our tap water, i.e. its not going to poison anyone. The stuff we used was the stuff you buy at a chemist for rinsing babies bottles. It was so last minute. If we had known before we may have organised a non chemical thing, to keep in line with SOS etc…. I hear you can use vinegar>??

- - Tips - -
First - this is a pretty huge task to take on. You’ll be feeding somewhere between 400 to 600 people for 3 meals a day, for 5 or 6 days. So you want some committed and organised people onboard.
Second – don’t freak out - it’s possible and it will happen. You will be surrounded by loads of people who are willing to help ☺
Third – it’s the most amazing feeling, knowing you can achieve this huge thing. And all the compliments people will undoubtedly give you.
- Walk away. Get down time…. Be careful of frying your brain! It’s the FOOD you need to be frying, the FOOD!
- Communicate a lot, have a hug, a coffee a tea, as there’s a lot of pressure on you when you gotta feed 500 hungry cold people.
- Make sure you are talking with the rego person regularly to know how much food to make.
- Do spices by taste,
- Have someone take you aside and make you sit down and eat. There will always be something to do but you need to look after yourself

Documents
1) “La ultima Template” an excel doco for working out total quantities
3) SOS phils oroginal pricing, another Excel doco
4) SoS 08 Menu - this has totals and menu
5) SoS 06 Menu