FoodWorks – Community Press Releases, Media Releases - Our Community

The overjoyed winner of this week's Chester's FoodWorks Eden (NSW) Great Grocery Grab draw was Vic Krisenthal of Eden.

"You've gotta be joking!" was Vic's reaction to the news as his first and only entry in the draw won the $50 prize.

"Now I have a 100 per cent success rate - that's just great," he said.

When asked what he might spend the prize on, Vic was confident he would think of something soon.

*Extracted from Eden Imlay Magnet 19/6/2008

The new FoodWorks Coolamon supermarket building in NSW is taking shape, under construction on the corner of Bruce and Mann Streets, where the old bowling club used to be.

Work is on track for the supermarket's scheduled opening later this year.

With the building frame up, construction on the roof commenced last Friday.

Dom and Dianne Catanzariti will be the owners of FoodWorks Coolamon. The Catanzaritis also own FoodWorks Narrandera in NSW.

*Extracted from Temora Independent 20/6/2008

Local families turned out in force to celebrate the official unveiling of the new look FoodWorks Dandaloo supermarket in Brownsville, NSW on Saturday despite cold, windy and overcast conditions.

Having just completed a major revamp, the supermarket now features the FoodWorks group's bold, modern livery both internally and externally as well as a fresh newly redesigned interior layout enabling for the introduction of extra departments, all new equipment throughout and additional quality product lines across all key existing departments.

Following market research and analysis combined with input from local customers, the Rabay family, who opened FoodWorks Dandaloo in January 2007, recognised a major store overhaul was required to better meet the changing needs of the local community.

"As the only supermarket in Brownsville, we realised a major refurbishment was necessary with the underlying purpose of matching our product range to satisfy our catchment area's needs now and well into the future as well as tailoring the store layout to make the shopping experience more convenient and enjoyable," Richard Rabay said.

Customers will notice brand new equipment in the store including a new refrigeration system, new deli casing and shelves, as well as the launch of a new fresh meat department, a substantial extension of their frozen range and a number of new product lines to the existing fresh fruit and vegetable, dairy, frozen, delicatessen, fresh flowers and general merchandise departments. Most noticeable of all to FoodWorks Dandaloo shoppers will be the major changes to the focal point of the store, the delicatessen, which has been significantly expanded and now features a special new BBQ chicken section as well as many new varieties of unique gourmet goodies.

"We're most proud of our delicatessen and this is probably what we're most famous for in the local community, so we wanted to raise the bar even further and enhance and expand the range and variety," Mr Rabay added.

The new look FoodWorks Dandaloo launch celebrations this past Saturday, 14 June 2008 included everything from a sausage sizzle, face painting, a clown / balloonist, helium balloon giveaways, music, au nicyclist, showbags, in-store promotions, food sampling, lucky dip prizes, a colouring competition and much more!

Construction on the major refurbishment commenced around three months ago and most of the work was carried out at night in order to cause the least amount of disturbance as possible to shoppers.

Employing 15 people from the local community, FoodWorks Dandaloo is now a full-service, competitively priced supermarket. Located at Shop 10, Dandaloo Shopping Centre, Brownsville Avenue, Brownsville NSW 2530, FoodWorks Dandaloo's opening hours are 7am until 7pm, seven days a week.

FoodWorks Willoughby opened for trading on Tuesday, 22 January 2008, delivering a new unique take to traditional supermarket offerings to the area and bringing the total number of FoodWorks stores in New South Wales to 60, with more to follow suite. The official grand opening took place on Saturday, 2 February 2008.

While FoodWorks Willoughby, situated at 285-289 Penshurst Street, is the only supermarket in Willoughby itself, it is up against tough competition from surrounding grocery stores in Chatswood, Northbridge and Castlecrag, so the new storeowner and managers decided to bring their own distinctive flavour to the 700 square metre (retail space) store.

Among the store's unique points of difference are its real focus on Asian delicacies, with over 500 Asian product lines, as well as a special gourmet range, and yet it is in the area of fresh that FoodWorks Willoughby wishes to be famous for.

Previously an IGA store, the new storeowners decided to open a FoodWorks supermarket and completely revamped, enhanced and extended the entire store, now featuring a full service of offerings including frozen, fresh fruit and vegetable, fresh meat, dairy, deli, grocery and general merchandise.

FoodWorks Willoughby manager and part owner Patcharee Sorsuwannamart said they were excited to join with the forward-thinking, growing FoodWorks group and couldn't wait to see the customers' reaction to the massive changes in the all new and improved supermarket.

"In order to develop and grow our customer base, we realised we had to look outside the box and create a supermarket with some bold, unique points of difference. We're delighted with the results so far, with a major interior restructure housing a significantly improved and increased range of new product lines from the previous offering, and of course you can't miss our new, fresh, vibrant orange and green FoodWorks branding," Miss Sorsuwannamart said.

Locals will also be happy to know that FoodWorks Willoughby is stocking an all new delicatessen, housing a fresh gourmet range of the most sought after product lines from the popular with locals "Gourmet Deli" shop, previously on High Street, Willoughby which closed recently. Among the favourites are gourmet salads, gourmet sausages gluten free, heat and serve fillos, use range of antipestos and freshly baked gourmet bread rolls.

FoodWorks Willoughby has plentiful car park spaces on two levels above the store with easy lift access directly inside the store.

FoodWorks Willoughby trades Monday to Saturday from 8am until 9pm and Sunday and public holidays from 9am until 8pm.

The Kyabram Charities Raffle held on a very cold and wet Gala Night last month brought great cheer to its three major prize winners.

The first prize winner Debbie Guy from Echuca, had the choice of worth of goods or services to the value of $5200 from the major sponsors.

"I'm just really excited to win because I've never won anything before," Debbie said.

"It is such a good cause and I only bought one ticket after scrounging around the bottom of my purse for change because I always like to support local charities."

After deciding to take a holiday possibly to South East Asia later in the year Debbie stopped into Travelscene at Boomerang to collect her prize.

Second prize winner was Kellie-Anne Thomas from Undera.

Kellie-Anne's mum bought the winning ticket and put it in her daughter's name as she had just won another raffle and she wanted the luck to continue.

Kellie-Anne's brother Craig accepted the $1000 worth of goods from Mingers Home Hardware which included a four burner barbecue, patio furniture and a seven piece outdoor setting.

Third prize winner was Alf Eddy from Shepparton. He was the winner of $200 worth of groceries donated by Kings FoodWorks Kyabram (Victoria).

*Extracted from Kyabram Free Press 22/1/2008

Tenambit business owners know only too well that custom in a modem society hinges on time.

"This centre's really busy and it's all about convenience. If people couldn't park, come in and get what they want and go again, they'd keep driving," FoodWorks Tenambit storeowner Mary Kleinschafer said.

Fresh bread, fish and chips, newspapers and Lotto tickets, even a good Thai meal are readily available at the centre fronting Maize Street.

The off-street car park with access to shopfronts offers all the easy service of a drive-through window.

That has been touted as the advantage of neighbourhood centres: despite the surging popularity of nearby Stockland Green Hills, the Tenambit commercial centre is thriving.

Businesses reported being "flat out" on Christmas Eve, as people avoided major shopping centres and opted to pickup their Christmas Day treats from neighbourhood shops.

And convenience is about to step up, with more parking, including additional disabled spaces, earmarked for Tenambit under Maitland City Council's draft revitalisation plan.

The 26 angled parking spaces will be replaced by 34 perpendicular spaces, as well as a taxi rank.

Two more disabled car parking spaces will be provided in addition to 10 parallel parking spaces outside shops.

Ms Mary Kleinschafer spent about $500,000 upgrading her building last year - which included extending the floorspace.

She described the plans, which included landscaping, a new footpath and pavement areas, as "well and truly overdue".

"The only worry would be during construction, if they closed off the car parking area," she said.

"I would hope that if the car park was closed off, it would be organised so that the disruption would be minimal.

"We had a similar situation a couple of years ago, and people didn't park on the street; they kept driving."

* Extracted from Maitland Mercury 10/1/2008

'Tis the season to be eating, but while most of us think of Christmas as a time for lunchtime feasts, for those who work in the supermarkets and food outlets around Wagga, NSW it is a time for long, busy hours at work.

Staff at FoodWorks Lake Albert won't be able to relax on Christmas Eve, with the first shift starting at 2am, when the initial group of barbecue chickens are put on.

These first 60 chickens will take two hours to cook and will be among the 600 which will be churned out of the store for the day.

"We only take pre-orders for chickens," assistant manager Jody Oliver said.

"They're good chooks that are cooked properly, and that's why the customers keep coming back.

"We take orders for hot and cold chickens, and try to give different times for people to pick their orders up to keep them as fresh as possible."

With a huge number of families across the area tucking into a pre-cooked chicken this Christmas, many diners will take the even easier option for Christmas lunch by picking up a pre-made salad while at the store.

"We also do a lot of salads," Ms Oliver said.

"We make all the salads bar one on the premises. Customers have to pre-order them for Christmas too, just so we can get the numbers right.

"It's all about convenience.

"It takes the pressure off lunch and dinner or Christmas Day, and being a deli we really pride ourselves on our meats.

"A lot of people like a hot lunch and cold dinner or the other way around, so we can definitely help out there."

While the number of chickens and salads Foodworks Lake Albert produces is limited by the store's size, this time next year numbers will skyrocket as the store's new premises gives them the room to up the numbers.

While FoodWorks Lake Albert's 500-600 chickens on Christmas Eve seems massive, FoodWorks Turvey Tops tops the haul, cooking up to 1,000 chickens on the day before Christmas.

*Extracted from Riverina Leader 12/12/2007

FoodWorks Hazelbrook is doing its part to help the holiday season be a little bit warmer and cheerier for 70 residents in the Upper Mountains when they receive Christmas hampers from local community-care organisations.

Christmas hampers for disadvantaged and frail-aged members of the Upper Mountains community has been a project of Central Blue Mountains Rotary for the past 10 years.

The Central Blue Mountains Rotarians and partners packed the hampers at the FoodWorks Hazelbrook premises, and made them available to care agencies for distribution to needy and deserving clients in time for Christmas.

Rotarian and councillor Chris Van der Kley said each hamper contained on average 25 practical food items with a retail value around $35.

"But the real value is the Christmas cheer that the delivery brings to the frail-aged and disadvantaged families," he said.

"They know that others are thinking of them at this time of the year and the goodies are a helping hand over the festive season."

Over the years, the hampers have been distributed to clients of the Salvation Army, Katoomba Women's Resource Centre, Lawson Community Health Centre, Lawson Catholic school/church and other needy local groups.

*Extracted from Blue Mountains Gazette 12/12/2007