Chef travels Australia to curb remote station cook shortages

Working as a qualified chef, she has fed cattle stations across Queensland, Northern Territory and Western Australia and has recently established her own business to help stations invest in the hand that feeds them.

Ms Humphries established Remote Contract Cooks to provide training, support and recruitment to cattle stations and remote businesses across Australia.

"I've been cooking most of my working life. I started as a station cook on Carlton Hills Station near Kununurra and have worked all over Australia," she said.

"Because I have been in the industry for so long, I would have a lot of people come to me asking if I knew of cooks needing a job or stations needing a cook, and I would help with recruitment.

"I was doing it for free for so long, this year I have taken it on full time and now I travel all over Australia training station cooks and recruiting for remote cook positions, including roadhouses and pubs."

Ms Humphries said providing industry training was also a vital part of ensuring the longevity of staff.

"All the ringers in the stock camp get a lot of training every year and the poor cook gets none, so he or she is usually thrown into the position with no training and expected to know what they're doing," she said.

"So I travel to their station and train them in their kitchen. The training is based on each cook's needs. We work mainly on time management, how to use your store effectively, how to use leftovers creatively and how to make something out of nothing.

"You're not close to town and can't just duck to the shops so you need to be able to think on your feet and make something out of something else."

Training is also available on butchering a beast, and learning about the uses of each cut of meat.

"If possible I get them to have a killer hanging up and we go through the cuts of meat as well," Ms Humphries said.

"Butchering is a dying art these days, because most of the time the crew just get in and do it all and the cook tends to miss out on that knowledge they could be learning. Unless they get in there and help them but then you have a crowded butcher shop.

"So a lot of the places I have been seeing lately, the cook may not know that a top side could be used as a roast, or steak, if you're short on mince - you can mince it, you could dice it or chuck it in a brine if you're low on corned meat.

"Or that the best cuts of meat are rump or the backstrap, and they don't know which end is the sirloin or rib fillet. So they may not realise that if they don't have that information."

Ms Humphries said the station cook was "more than just a cook", so she also provided mental health training.

"The cook is the heart of the station. You're the first person they see in the morning and last person they see at night," she said.

"You want a cook that is a happy bubbly person who is welcoming and also motherly to the crew because he or she is generally older and someone the crew can look up to and respect and might confide in after a hard day's work.

"They might grab a beer and come and have a chat while you're cooking dinner, so you kind of need to be a psychologist, a mother/father and everything rolled into one and you want that kitchen to be a safe place that everyone can come into and feel like they're welcome.

"It is also about fitting in. It's a remote job, the cook or staff might not have lived remotely before, so some training is also about your mental health and coping with living remote and fitting in with the likes of a younger crew."

Ms Humphries said she tailored training to suit each cook's and business's needs and requirements.

To eliminate industry staffing shortages, Ms Humphries said she undertook an extensive recruitment process to ensure each cook was matched to the best suited job.

"I do an in depth interview with each cook that applies for these roles. I check references as deeply as I can and I match the cooks up with the best suited job," she said.

"They may have only applied for one job but after I talk to them they may be suited to three different jobs, while also eliminating the jobs that aren't right for them.

"The goal is to have a long-term cook who is a productive and important part of the team. Then we will start to see the industry gaps filled in by having station cooks returning year after year.

"If stations want to keep a good cook long-term they need to put the effort in to keep them."

For training for recruitment you can contact Raqual Humphries at ruralandremotecooks@gmail.com