Canberra catering business wins local NAIDOC Award

With a reputation for innovative food and excellent service, family- owned Canberra catering company Bandu Catering received the inaugural ACT Business of the Year Award at the 2013 Canberra NAIDOC Awards in July.

Bandu, which means ‘food’ in the Dhangatti language, mixes native ingredients and flavours with innovative, contemporary Australian cuisine.

Bandu Catering was formed when Jo Donovan, a proud Dhanggati woman, left a 36-year career in administration with the ACT and Federal Governments to pursue a long held dream of business ownership, and to care for her mother.

Further north in Brisbane, her son Aaron Devine, a qualified chef with fourteen year’s experience in the industry, was looking for a fresh challenge.

“I had finished up in Queensland and I was ready to move on,” Aaron said.

“We hadn’t decided on the actual name or concept of Bandu at that stage, but we thought, ‘let’s cater.’

“I said to Mum, ‘what you do as a hobby and I do professionally, let’s turn that into something.’ ”

While Aaron was organising his move back to Canberra, Jo attended Indigenous Business Australia’s (IBA) three one-day Into Business workshops to help explore their business idea and to get ready for business ownership.

“There’s a lot of work that IBA requires you to do during the workshops, but I didn’t mind,” Jo said.

“To me, if you are committed and you want it, you will go hard and make it happen.”

After finishing the workshops, Jo and Aaron set about creating a business plan for their new company.

With that plan in place, they were able to secure a small loan for a customised and branded delivery van. They also received mentoring and support from a business consultant through IBA’s Business Development and Assistance Program.

Jo’s daughter Jessica Devine, also a qualified chef, joined Bandu Catering in 2013, bringing an extra layer of experience and passion to the family business.

“It’s our decades of personal, industry and government connections, and what we personally bring to the business that adds strength to that,” Jo said.

“My strength is administration. Being a chef, that’s basically all Aaron has known and now Jessica is on board with her skills and new ideas. We are running with that knowledge, and we have grown that knowledge.

Jo said winning a NAIDOC award was ‘the icing on the cake’ of a challenging but rewarding time.

“I was just so humbled. What came to mind straight away when I got up to speak was my kids, Aaron and Jessica, and the long hours they’ve put in,” Jo said.

“I think it’s really great that we have our patrons in the community who support us, who respect us and acknowledge the quality of work and the hard work that we do.

“It was the awards night that brought it all home and just what we have achieved and what we can achieve. We have some big plans, big ideas for this business.”

Jo and her family know that constantly exploring new ideas in business, food and service delivery are vital to ensure the business continues to grow.

Bandu is developing an online shopping cart, which will streamline its quotation and ordering process, freeing up Jo’s time.

“We’re working on a new website, and looking at having a shopping cart where people can go online and look at what we have to offer,” Jo said.

The family is also looking at developing an online blog to capture the positive feedback and testimonials received from their extensive list of clients.