From the street, the North Fitzroy home of ASRC Catering looks like any other business in Melbourne’s northern suburbs. Behind the single-fronted façade is a former mechanic’s workshop, the deep and ample space now fitted out as an open-plan office, a commercial kitchen with side roller-door access, and a large store room.

ASRC’s award-winning catering social enterprise moved to North Fitzroy with little fanfare in November 2015 as The Melbourne Cup occupied our attention. At 320sqm, the new space is four times the size of the previous kitchen in Brunswick. Mentor Chef, Cathy Maguire says of the former premises, ‘We were hiring freezers and putting them in the driveway, so we were absolutely bursting at the seams.’

Cathy Maguire, Mentor Chef at ASRC Catering

With more than two decades of expertise in hospitality behind her, including six years leading the team at St Kilda’s Soulmama restaurant and guest spots on television’s Good Morning Australia and Ready Steady Cook, Cathy was first drawn to ASRC Catering because of its underpinning ethic. She wanted to do more than simply create delicious restaurant food, she wanted ‘to put something back, something with a social outcome.’ She remains passionate about the enterprise’s commitment to providing paid employment opportunities for people seeking asylum.

Cathy, along with Co-Head Chef Natasha Ruiz, mentors a team of up to 20 cooks. Most do not have a background in hospitality. She explains, ‘For many, this is their first port of call as far as a job goes in Australia, so it’s about getting them into a team environment and setting them up in some way for the working industry in Australia.’ Cathy recognises the enterprise is often a stepping stone to employment in other fields. Nonetheless, one ASRC cook has gone on to work for the Qantas Catering Group, while others have progressed to work in sectors as varied as finance, mechanical engineering and aged care.

Cathy has worked with the enterprise for nine of its eleven years and has seen it through periods of substantial growth and change. After such a long stint you might expect her enthusiasm to have flagged but it hasn’t. She explains: ‘Every day has a different feel about it. Essentially you’re coming to the same place, working with the same people. But that said, every function, every order, every time is slightly different.’

In 2015-16 ASRC Catering serviced more than one thousand functions. Events range from private birthday celebrations for 20 guests through to all-day conferences for several hundred. Clients vary from individuals to hospitals, legal institutions, NGOs and universities. For the record, the largest event in ASRC Catering’s history – with 700 guests – took place at St Kilda’s Astor Theatre.

The current menu features over 60 items, including canapés, soups and salads, desserts and main courses served as either shared meals or boxed dinners. ASRC Catering can cover breakfast through supper with morning and afternoon pit stops. From Akaree to Vietnamese rice paper rolls, the animal and cruelty-free menu is inspired by flavours from Africa, the Middle East and Asia. And the most popular item? Definitely the rice paper rolls – the kitchen prepared and served 25,349 of them in 2016 alone! That’s almost 70 rolls every single day!

The success of the enterprise is borne out by its move to a larger premises, a steadily developing client list and a growing financial turnover, yet Cathy emphasises the need to stay a step ahead of customer demand as the business evolves.

She points out that in the early days of ASRC Catering the norm was to drop off the food and leave, whereas now there is a greater call for front-of-house services that include set-up, wait service, pack-down and clean-up. Accordingly, front-of-house staff now wear uniforms to ‘smarten up the look’ and the enterprise has created the position of Functions Supervisor to service complex events. Other tendencies she observes are the rise of the short-notice function (for example, food for 40 in two days’ time) and the increasing need for menu items to meet a dizzying array of special dietary requirements (gluten-free, fructose-free, paleo, and onion and garlic intolerances to name a few).

With an eye to the future, Cathy talks keenly about the best way to phase in menu changes, the feasibility of night shifts at the kitchen to meet increasing demand, and the enterprise’s upcoming first foray into marketing. ‘You’re always trying to make it a bit better, you’re always trying to meet customer demand,’ she says. The former mechanic’s grease and engine oil may be long gone, but deliveries by the truckload of rice paper and cooking oil show no sign of abating.

ASRC Catering is a not-for-profit social enterprise of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, who offer global food experiences, with a cause. When you choose ASRC Catering for your function or event, you are also helping to empower people seeking asylum in our community. Visit catering.asrc.org.au