Local chef leads the charge against food waste

From the early days of working in fine dining kitchens to his collaborations with Jamie Oliver, Melbourne chef Tobie Puttock has lived many culinary lives.

But these days, his apron is tied for a different purpose: transforming would-be food waste into innovative, long-life products.

Situated in the Purpose Precinct of Queen Victoria Market, the Moving Feast test kitchen is a dynamic initiative led by STREAT, a social enterprise dedicated to transforming food systems.

“I’m the third generation of chef in this kitchen,” Tobie told CBD News.

“The first gen was a guy called Chris (Locke) who was very into fermentation and zero wate. Then Fernando (Minervini) came along and continued the work. And now there’s me.”

This isn’t your typical test kitchen. Tobie transforms regular deliveries of surplus or imperfect produce into the signature creations of Moving Feast.

“Sometimes you’ll get 90 kilos of overripe melon,” he said.

“You’ve got a date on that melon, so you’ve got to act quickly. What we’re trying to do is take something that’s got two days on it and give it two years.”

The goal is to extend shelf life while retaining, or even enhancing, flavour and value.

It’s a challenge that draws on a lifetime of culinary experience, and it’s one that Tobie embraces with enthusiasm.

“We’ve got banana skin miso on the go, and we’re working on turning watermelon rind into kimchi. We’re even trying to make a seaweed-style wrap from iceberg lettuce,” he said.

Tobie started his culinary journey in Melbourne before heading to London to train at the iconic River Café, where he quickly formed a bond with fellow chef Jamie Oliver.

“We were both losers at school,” Tobie said.

“We learned differently to other people, but kitchens made sense to us.”

Together, they launched Jamie’s Italian restaurants and later the “Fifteen” social enterprise, which trained disadvantaged young people to become chefs.

“We ran that program and it was amazing to be part of someone’s life change, and it was life-changing for me too,” he said.

After returning to Australia, Tobie spent several years working in food media and publishing, followed by a stint as a new product development chef.

It was there that the issue of food waste became impossible to ignore.

“I became really aware and passionate about our food waste issue. But I realised I couldn’t make a dent from the inside,” he told CBD News.

That’s when the opportunity arose to become Moving Feast’s third-generation eco-chef – a role that seamlessly weaves together his experience in restaurants, food innovation, and social enterprise.

“I couldn’t have done this without those other parts,” Tobie said.

“This really feels like my fourth chapter.”

The kitchen is a constant experiment in waste-led invention, where stale bread becomes house-made pasta.

“We’re trying to come up with solutions for food waste that are not just retail products, but connections - like introducing the baker throwing away bread to the pasta maker with the $100,000 extruder.”

The end goal? To scale up, and out into Australia’s hospitality industry.

“We want to take in more, do wholesale batches, get into cafes and restaurants, and deliver meals to community partners,” Tobie said.

“If we can start to make a small dent in the issue of food waste, that’s pretty amazing.” •