The Healthy Celiac Podcast

The Real Costs of Gluten Free Food: AKA Gluten Tax - An Interview with Stacey Dadd Ep. 167

• Belinda Whelan, Stacey Dadd • Season 1 • Episode 167

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What if a simple dietary change could completely transform your life? Join us as we sit down with Stacey Dad, the talented owner and head baker at Coeliac Australia Accredited Bakery Champagne and Gumboots in Western Australia.

Stacey shares all about her journey with celiac disease, which began with years of misdiagnoses and health struggles. Her story takes a turn when a chance suggestion leads to her discovering a gluten intolerance, ultimately improving her health and inspiring the creation of her thriving gluten free bakery.

Ever wonder why gluten free foods come with a higher price tag? Stacey helps break down the "gluten tax" and the real costs that go into producing quality gluten free products. We discuss the financial challenges that manufacturers face, and why these products cost more to produce. Learn about the advancements in gluten free options over the years and gain a newfound appreciation for the intricacies and dedication behind each gluten free cake and pastry.

Running a gluten-free business isn't just about having the right recipes—it's about building trust and community. Stacey gives an insider's look at the rigorous process of obtaining gluten free accreditation and the high standards she maintains to ensure her bakery is celiac safe.

You can find Stacey via the links below
Website https://www.champagneandgumboots.com.au
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/champagneandgumboots/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/champagneandgumboots
Pinterest https://www.pinterest.com.au/champagnegboots/



Find out how Ultimate Celiac System can support your Celiac journey here
https://belindawhelantraining.com/ultimate-celiac-system

Wish you could get gluten free meals on the table fast that the whole family will love? Check out Meal Plans Made Easy
https://belindawhelantraining.com/gluten-free-meal-plans-made-easy

Join my free community and grab your copy of 11 Mistakes People Make Living Gluten Free here https://www.belindawhelan.myflodesk.com/11mistakes

Check out my Daily Health Tracker here
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I am so happy to be featured in Feedspots Top 10 Celiac Disease Podcasts
https://blog.feedspot.com/celiac_disease_podcasts/

And I would love to connect with you on Instagram thehealthyceliac

If you have a spare moment, please pop over to Apple Podcasts and leave me a review. Thank you!




Music Credit bensound.com 

Speaker 1:

All right. Welcome back to this week's episode of the Healthy Celiac Podcast. I'm very excited. Today I have a very special guest on the show, actually from Australia today, so Stacey Dad is joining us all the way over in WA so Western Australia, for those of you that don't know. And Stacey is the owner and head baker of Champagne and Gumboots, which is one of the only Celiac Australia accredited cake boutiques and patisseries in Western Australia. As well as being one of only two accredited wedding cake makers in the nation, stacey has been named one of the top 10 wedding cake makers of WA and specializes in bringing the cake dreams of Celis to life. What a dream. Welcome to the show, stacey. It's great to have you. Thank you so much for having me. Had a few tech issues just now, didn't we? But we got there in the end.

Speaker 2:

It's fine Technology hates us.

Speaker 1:

It does. We do our thing elsewhere and yours is obviously in the bakery. So before we talk about your beautiful cakes and things that you make there, please share with us about your journey with celiac disease. I know yours is an interesting story. I'd love to share it with our listeners.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, look, it is an interesting one and it's funny how many times this conversation comes up. Obviously, being face to face with celiacs and people who eat gluten free for a myriad of different reasons, uh, and the amount of people that are like, oh my god, that resonates so much with me that you know it triggers a lot of things, because I am technically not diagnosed celiac but I am treated like a celiac, uh, mainly through a whole bunch of misdiagnoses most of my life, which I mean I got sick probably early, like late 90s, early 2000s, and went downhill very, very quickly and it took like. I think I saw dozens of doctors. At one point I was seeing naturopaths, I was having blood tests done, I was 14.

Speaker 2:

Like you know, it's not an easy thing to do and mentally as well, it really wasn't a great space and because they were bandying around like really wild ideas about what could be making me sick and some of them were kind of terrifying, right as a 14-year-old, you're like, oh my God. And then they're like, oh no, the blood test ruled that out, you're fine, and it's like like, but I'm still sick, yeah, so, yeah, what's the answer? Yeah, probably the most abridged version, because it is quite a long story. Um, as you know, I got sick at 14. By the time I was 15 and a half, I'd been labeled with basically a boatload of disorders, including glandular fever and chronic fatigue, um, and severe anemia, of which I went through, yes, uh-huh, and see now in this day we all go ding.

Speaker 2:

But you know, early 2000s, no one thought about it. The word celiac didn't even come up, like it wasn't mentioned. No one even went down that track. What ended up happening was I ended up seeing a naturopath who put me on a really hardcore exclusionary diet and a lot of different supplements and I actually ended up excluding gluten and dairy and a few other things by kind of nature of the based, and I kind of improved to a point where I could go back to normal work. I actually didn't finish high school properly. I wasn't able to pursue kind of my my dreams of becoming a chef at that point, so it really did kind of put my life on hold and I just kind of went back to normal living. I guess it took years to kind of feel some semblance of normality and that was just what it was. But I didn't stay gluten-free, I just went back to eating normally and I kind of just went oh, this is what it feels like to be me, I guess.

Speaker 2:

Flash forward many years later I was diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome, so that was a whole fun thing, and then it was through the treatment of that that my doctor went. I think you're gluten intolerant. And I'm like, oh, okay. So I had the skin rashes and I had a few other different symptoms and he was like, I think you're intolerant. How about we just try cutting out gluten and see what happens? And I was like, oh, okay, this is new, I'll try that. And I mean instantaneously, within two weeks. I felt amazing, and I mean instantaneously, within two weeks. I felt amazing and I was like, oh, is this normal? Is this what I'm supposed to feel? I'm like, oh my God. So kind of mind-blowing to me in that moment. And the biggest takeaway from it I stopped getting migraines. I was having debilitating migraines that would send me home from work and just absolutely interrupt my life for days at a time and it was hardcore. And so I just ended up treating myself as a gluten-tolerant person.

Speaker 2:

I went fully gluten-free, I did all the research, the learning curve, and then I had my son a number of years later and I remember talking to my baby saying you know, my iron levels have always been an issue. I think we should probably keep an eye on them during the pregnancy and he kept checking them and he's like your iron levels are fine, like perfect. I was like, oh, because I was a severe anemic for like years and that didn't go away. And he was like no, no, no, they're all fine. You seem to be perfectly normal now. I was like, oh, okay, yay, I honestly thought nothing of it. I just went oh, yay for me Again.

Speaker 2:

Flash forward, another jump in years. And I come home to the country, I see a new GP and she's looking through like my entire medical history, as you do. And she's like Stacy, you've been killed. My entire medical history, as you do. And she's like stay safe with your celiac. And I'm like, oh, what does that mean? And she's like, well, really nothing. Because in order for you to get tested now, we'd have to put you back on gluten.

Speaker 2:

And I'd been like hard, exclusively gluten-free for probably close to a decade at this point and I was like I just don't really want to put myself through that. And she went honestly, I don't see the reason to. She said your iron levels are fine. You seem to have a fully, like you know, good grip on your health. I have improved massively. All my other health conditions have calmed down. She's like we'll just treat you like a celiac, we'll just consider you celiac and call it a day. Yeah, oh, okay, it didn't change that much for me because I was like, well, I already do this anyway. Yeah, anyway, so what's the point? So it was a really like. When people ask me they're like, are you celiac? The short answer is yes. The long answer, obviously, is technically I'm not diagnosed as such, but I do treat myself as such. And, yeah, she believes that's why my iron levels fix themselves, because I hear my yeah, everything's fine now.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, oh, it's crazy, isn't it? And your story is so similar to so many people, even my best friend. So she actually got diagnosed as gluten intolerant by her chiropractor of all people, which is just insane and she stopped eating gluten and dairy and her whole life completely changed. Her skin cleared up, her health improved. And all these years later I'm like you could actually be celiac because you were never tested. You just went off gluten and she probably doesn't act as severe as what we do, as you know, making sure we have zero gluten. However, when she does have it, she's not not great. So you know she could be celia, but there's so many people in the same boat where one person says you know, oh, just go off gluten. And they're not doing that process and not testing. So it is really interesting, but I do wonder how you know, with more awareness and more you know us sharing stories and getting the word out there, if more people will go hang on a minute probably should get tested for celiac disease before starting eating gluten-free.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely and like even a number of my friends have kind of followed a similar sort of track and I've said to all of followed a similar sort of track and I've said to all of them go and get tested. Like it just adds that extra little layer. You've already done the damage if you are celiac, so keep with it. Because I'm not going to redamage myself now, like after it's been probably 12 years now that I've been gluten free. I'm not going to put my body through that, let alone. I don't think I can handle those migraines.

Speaker 1:

No, it would just be horrendous, wouldn't it Like? When people say, oh, can't you just have one bite, or can't you just have a cheat day, it's like, oh, I couldn't even think of anything worse.

Speaker 2:

I'm also hypersensitive, so like if I go out and eat out, I know within 30 minutes I've been gluten. I just yeah's really interesting myself. Yeah, I also find the glandular fever like. Have you done read some of the research around glandular fever being a trigger disease?

Speaker 1:

for I'm aware that it is.

Speaker 2:

But yeah, I haven't read too much research, but the amount of people I mentioned that to in the shop and they're like wait, really, I had glandular fever too. Yeah, the amount of celiacs I talked to that have found ourselves in an almost identical sort of series of steps. It's really quite interesting?

Speaker 1:

yeah, definitely. Yeah, it's incredible. I did a bit of a survey last year on what people thought their triggers were and it's amazing all the variety of triggers. So the main one was actually pregnancy, so that was the one thing that came up the most so, and then followed by various things like glandular fever and COVID and, yeah, a number of other different factors.

Speaker 2:

So, yes, it is very, very interesting for sure, yeah, well, actually, now that you say that one of the women that work in my building at another of the businesses, she's pregnant and she literally came into me the other day and she goes oh my God, I get to be like you now and I'm like what she goes. I get to eat gluten free now and I'm like what she goes. Yeah, I've been taken off gluten during my pregnancy. It wasn't reacting well and I'm like, oh, we'll see how that goes when you have the baby.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Keep an eye on that one. Yeah, definitely. Hmm now, we connected a little while back because you posted an amazing post on facebook and someone shared it and it came across. You know my end of the world it got shared a lot, yeah, yeah it shared a lot, and for good reason.

Speaker 1:

and and basically the gist of this post was explaining the gluten tax, as people call it. So a lot of people in our community they complain about the costs of gluten-free food and you were explaining why it costs so much and the ins and outs of it. And you know, for years I have been a massive advocate for being grateful for gluten-free food and that comes from a place of. I do feel lucky, like I've lived with celiac disease for over 15 years and back when I first got diagnosed, exactly Like the bread was disgusting and they weren't many good options, like there were not many options. So you know, there's companies like Arnott's that are, you know, increasing their product range and there's just all these different products that we have available to us that we never had back then.

Speaker 1:

So, I come from a place of thank you, Thank you for providing us. But you know, when we look at people in Facebook groups and people that message me, they do focus on the negative side of it.

Speaker 2:

And.

Speaker 1:

I thought it'd be really interesting to open up a conversation about that today, just so people can understand a little bit more why we do have to pay more for gluten-free foods, especially certified and, you know, better quality as well, because, as we know there's some pretty bad gluten-free products that are not good for our health, and you know not the best options.

Speaker 1:

So, yeah, I'm going to hand it over to you, stacey, if you want to share with us. You know about that, because I think it's fascinating and I think it's something that our community really needs to understand and learn about.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. And what was really interesting was I posted that post from a place of I actually was getting a little bit upset about it, so as probably someone who works in the gluten-free space as well, not just as a celiac. We're members of all of these gluten-free Facebook groups and we have one here in Perth which is massive, like it's probably close to 20,000 people, oh wow. Well, it's huge and it is the absolute epitome of information in terms of like. If you want to go, even overseas, people have got like Bali threads and Italy threads and you know it's sharing information, even the location. Like we had a thread dedicated to the Arnott's Tim Tams gluten-free when they came out so people could find them. Yeah, cool.

Speaker 1:

They were selling out like crazy, weren't they?

Speaker 2:

Oh my God, it was like a god pandemic toilet paper epidemic so this facebook group is, um, so I've been a member of it obviously for quite some time, back when it was much, much smaller and it was a much, I'll say, nicer place on the internet than it has sort of slightly become. Uh, and I think I like kind of a lot of what you've said. A lot of new people have been diagnosed and a lot of people have kind of been brought into this community and they came in at a time where there was gluten free options, where we weren't desperate for anyone to understand us and kind of service us, understand us and and kind of service us. And it gets a little bit whingy and whiny for lack of a bit of better word, and I, unfortunately, and the vast majority of burnt fruit businesses we're all in these Facebook groups too, so we see what people say, not just about us but about the businesses in general, and I actually saw a number of posts in the days leading up to me posting that, sharing that information that really actually quite upset me, because they were just downright nasty and that's and it was targeting and it was basically like we're being ripped off, like people are actively ripping off people, particularly in a time like now with the cost of living crisis, and you know everyone's tied on on money, like we're not going to deny that, but it was actually quite upsetting, and I I see the same comment all the time that people say, oh, yes, well, we know it's cost more to make, but I don't genuinely think people understand yes, more, it's not a little bit more, it's a lot more, and so I wrote that post from that place of look, I'm just going to share this. I didn't anticipate the reaction it got. It was, um, yeah, kind of like large, yeah, and we got. What was really nice, though, is, like you know, often or not, if something goes kind of semi-viral, you tend to attract a lot of negative stuff on it, negative comments. What was really nice about this was the level of interest in learning from people, so it was actually quite like it turned out very positive in my mind um, the responses from people.

Speaker 2:

So, basically, what I did was I took one of my five flowers, so I make my own custom flower blend. As most people who have tried to bake gluten-free know, you can't just take one flower like white rice flour and whack it in a cake and be like bob's, your uncle. That'll work fine. It's not that simple, it's very scientific and for someone who hated science in high school, I am oddly obsessed with it now. Unfortunately, that pH level of cocoa powder on another day, it's weird, right, but in order to get these products to be at a level where we can say no one will know they're gluten-free, which is our tagline, we have to use a myriad of different products, and so I make my own flour blend, which I've been doing for probably 12 years now, and I keep tweaking it and testing it and adding things or taking things out, yeah, etc.

Speaker 2:

But these flours are expensive, really expensive, and there's five of them. There's five ingredients, not just one old, good old gluten flour in a cake, and so I broke that down in terms of costing. It's just one element of what we actually look at and, to put it in really stark contrast, I can get a bag 25 kilo bag of good old gluten containing wheat flour from my wholesaler for about 40 dollars. Okay, now that price has gone up, obviously, in in recent years, but, um, you know, 40 bucks, that's not bad for 25 kilos now, in comparison to that, one of my flowers just one of them is 83 dollars. Sorry, it's 93 dollars for one bag and it's on the other side of the country. Yeah, then I have to pay 83 on top of that 93 to courier that bag across the country. And ordering it in multiple bags doesn't decrease the price. Uh, it actually just compounds it. The only way I could get it cheaper would be if I ordered it by the ton and you can't really have that sitting around, can?

Speaker 2:

you, I don't use that much of that flour and, uh, I also don't know where I'm going to put one ton of brown rice flour in my store. So that obviously doesn't work. And that's just just the absolute obvious factor. Uh, around the pricing is that the very simply the flour itself is now basically four times more expensive than gluten flour. And that's just getting it. That doesn't include any of the other flours or any of the other ingredients. So it was.

Speaker 2:

It was really enlightening watching people's reaction. Um, explaining this and we weren't like. The gluten free tax comes up not just in the cost of the ingredients, because I think there is a level of understanding that the ingredients are more expensive, but I think there's all the other parts of it, like we said about accreditation and lab testing and certifications and things like that. But it's just, it's. It's such a huge element Like you, look at every single part of my business. It is more expensive to run because it's float and fro. Yeah, absolutely, even training staff. I can't just hire a staff member and put them on the floor and be like, yeah, sell this stuff. You know, I have to train them about what's the difference. We have to drill into them why we don't serve oat milk, because we get asked that every day oh, do you really?

Speaker 1:

why really?

Speaker 2:

oh really every single day and people are like, oh yeah, but I can have oat milk. And I'm like, yep, but I'm in a credited business, business and cross contamination not great, oh dear wow yeah, that is a challenge constantly educating people around that space.

Speaker 2:

Um, and, like I said, a really big part of what we do is we're trying to normalise gluten-free to the point where we are having couples brides, you know buying one wedding cake on their day, yep, selling it to everybody, and there's only two celiacs in the room, but no one needs to know it's gluten-free, no one needs to know.

Speaker 1:

It's so good now, yep, and we have changed that mentality around it, but it does mean we get a lot of what we call normies in the store, people who aren't gluten-free but they love our products, and they, yeah, and that's where they tend to ask for oat milk too.

Speaker 2:

Right, yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker 2:

So we have to educate them as well so a really big part of what we do is around the education space, and that costs money. Yep, you know the entire accreditation process isn't cheap either we were talking about it before and it is an ongoing cost. Basically, you pay to use the a little gluten-free marker, the tick from celiac australia, and on packaged products it's the cross wheat labels. There are two different parts here. There's an endorsement and there's accreditation. Accreditation is for food businesses like myself, so cafes, restaurants, etc. Endorsement is for products that are packaged, that sell on, say, like Woolworths shelf. Um, both of them require ongoing trademark usage, so we pay just to use that symbol. In the most simple, bare bones terms yeah, um, and then we have to get re-accredited and we go through that process every year. Yeah, in fact, mine is in July. Yeah, and literally like, oh, I've got to get the paperwork in order.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, definitely. It's one of those things that it just instills so much trust in the Celiac community. Like we've got a couple of pubs here in South Australia that are certified by Celiac Australia and it's just like the most amazing thing to go there and order anything and not have to ask any questions, not have to think about it. Like what a dream to go into your store and be like oh wow, I can eat anything.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and because what we do is so different, and that's very much why I started my business. So years ago I was a recipe developer and that's what I did. I converted recipes to gluten free purely for my own benefit. Let's be very honest here. It came from a selfish place. To start with, I liked cake and I wanted to be able to eat it and not taste like cardboard, yeah, and so I started doing that and it took off on the internet and I had a blog and I had recipes and people were asking me for help. Even now, some of our recipes our caramel slice recipe, outranks jamie oliver's caramel slice recipe on google.

Speaker 2:

Wow, we are gonna have to share our link directly to that one um, yeah, and it's still one of the top performing, top performing recipes on our website. Um, but we I I started to see this hole in the market in here in perth that there were all these cake makers but none of them were servicing the celiac community specifically. A lot of them were doing gluten and gluten-free and I was like, but that just there's no trust there.

Speaker 2:

You could like drill in on this and really service this one nation, which is not small by any means. A lot of people think that being gluten-free is this tiny little group of people in australia and it really isn't. Um, you know, there are a lot of us and that's just celiacs. That doesn't include gluten intolerant people or all the people with autoimmune disorders like hashimoto's who eat gluten-free. You know, um, so I went down the track of okay, I'm going to be 100% gluten-free celiac safe. You can't legally use that term unless you are accredited actually fun fact, which is fair enough, absolutely. And I went down that track and then eventually, well, actually, I had a good reason to stop and do the paperwork, because everyone says the initial paperwork to get accredited is quite extensive and it is. Once it's done, it's a lot easier to just keep on top of it, but the initial setup is quite involved. Uh, but I had this wonderful thing called the pandemic that I wasn't doing anything in april 2020. So I can say that I also developed 36 new recipes in that in the time and wrote a whole new ebook. So, uh, yeah, look, I used my time productively.

Speaker 2:

But we became accredited and at the time, we were the only ones among maybe a handful of like. There was a cafe and a butcher in western australia. We still don't have a lot of accredited places. Yeah, um, and it really became this big point of difference that we were safe, that you know, the tip means a lot more um, but I think a lot more people are being diagnosed gluten-free now and they're not aware of celiac australia. They're not aware of, uh, what the accreditation means and what it means in terms for them and in terms of for us as a business. So it's an interesting area, yeah, definitely so.

Speaker 1:

When we look at those costs, obviously you know it's either absorb those costs or pass them on. Like you can't be in business and not make money. This is what I say to people all the time. You can't expect people to be charities, like, if you're running a business, you have a family to support, you have a livelihood to support, you need to make money at the end of the day. So you have to pass on these costs and that's the thing. If people want these options, they've got to understand that they've got to pay a little bit more to be able to have these amazing experiences and this food to enjoy.

Speaker 2:

It's walking in and going. It's an entire sweet store, like literally 90% of what we do it's cake, it's profiteroles, it's Swiss roll, you know. So it's like to Perth booking now and we have these really vivid emotional responses from people and we have people come from all over the world. We've had people flying from Paris, we've had people from Queensland and New Zealand and we get a lot of over-East who are like oh no, no, everyone talks about you over-East. That's mind-blowing.

Speaker 1:

That's amazing Really. But your photos, and like your work, it's not just food, it's art like it is stunning. So if you're listening. You have to go and check out Stacey's work. We'll put links in all the show notes and she's going to share a little bit more about it in a sec. But it is like artwork, like amazing. If you are getting married, you have to look up Stacey for a wedding cake weddings are our favorite thing, yeah yeah, that whole thing of serving your guests a gluten-free wedding cake, we did that at our wedding.

Speaker 1:

We got married in Bali and we had we just had a gluten-free cake. We did not go. I'm just gonna have a little bit for me and everyone else can have the normal. No, we just went. We were just going to gluten-free cake.

Speaker 2:

So even better, though, and this is where, like, I can feel that we're making a difference in the, in the community, because in the last so we're just on the back end of peak wedding season, so I've just kind of come off the back end of it and in the last uh, probably what six or seven weeks I've done. I've done dozens of weddings, but probably a third of them neither the bride or groom were celiac.

Speaker 2:

Oh, but they had celiac guests and they were like that is amazing like how unfair is it for them to have to miss, and that that's like that's right having been at an event and not been served at all, or being given a whole apple on a plate as my gluten-free dessert option. You know, that's what it's about, and that, to me, is like, oh, okay, we're making a difference now because people are understanding and we've got to a point where we can make them look just like any other wedding cake and we can make them taste just like a wedding cake. So you know, it's really exciting to be part of this kind of movement. Yeah, like, it's kind of like we're leading the way in terms of really convincing people that gluten-free is good yeah, definitely, and amazing. Good, yeah, definitely and amazing.

Speaker 2:

And even to the point like where we are in the swan valley, we are surrounded by very much a very heavy italian uh community and I'm very picky and they're obsessed with our profiteroles. Yeah, wow, like, I'm mind-blowingly obsessed, and we've convinced the locals that gluten-free is bloody awesome and that anyone and everyone can eat it, and so we do have that, that percentage of our customers that aren't gluten-free. That's great and you just think, yeah, like, that's what it's about.

Speaker 1:

Yeah definitely, and just just rewinding back a little bit to how you're saying about the wedding cake, I just like I put myself in that position. If I was a guest at someone's wedding and they had got a gluten-free cake so that I could be included, I think I'd burst into tears. I'd burst into tears 100%. Oh my God, like. I've been to plenty of weddings, and even one where I couldn't eat anything. There was nothing there for me. I checked with the bride prior. I wasn't being catered for and I stood in the kitchen and I ate my own food that I'd heated up. So when you're included like I know it's not our day, but when you are included, that is next level, like to be considered, yeah, amazing, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

I've done the same thing. I was at um very close friends of my husband and I's wedding a few years ago and they did the mobile food and the pizza truck, yeah, and they did this big beautiful wedding cake. And I'm like they didn't ask me and all of it was gluten and like, literally, friends of mine were like we'll uber you something and because I don't, I don't support uber yeah, right, I don't support any of those because small businesses, so I boycott them. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, I'm fine, we'll, we'll go somewhere afterwards and were like you're like literally sitting here watching everyone eat. I'm like, oh, I'll drink the champagne.

Speaker 1:

And have a really cracking time.

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah, on an empty stomach it was great, or a cracking the next day maybe.

Speaker 2:

Right, but it's one of those things where we do get forgotten and that's where I think the mission behind my business has very much been. It's about inclusion and I never kind of anticipated it being that way, but it became about this little community and so being able to, you know, go back and educate the community about why it costs what it costs for us, yeah, community about why it costs what it costs for us, yeah, and and why, if you don't support these products and these businesses that do that, we go away. So I don't know if you pay much attention to kind of what happens in perth, but in the last month we've had some seven gluten-free businesses shut down oh, that's so disappointing isn't it?

Speaker 2:

yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, we're in that kind of peak time where cafes and restaurants and breweries everything's shutting down.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we've noticed that here too. Yeah, yeah and it's.

Speaker 2:

It's gotten to a very alarming point where it's not just about the cost of things, it's about how hard we have to work because there's own operators where free labor. I don't take a wage, so I work Sundays because it's cheaper for me to work sundays than it is to pay someone like sundays penalty rate, yeah, and a lot of us have had to do that for years now. You think we did it all through the pandemic and then we came out and we did a bit of a boom and now we've crashed again and a lot of us are just working really, really, really hard hours. So it can kind of be a bit of a knock to your confidence. When you see posts in facebook, it's actually kind of and I actually find it kind of insulting because it's a little bit like I've literally built my business's purpose around serving these people, servicing self serving the, the gluten-free community and for them to basically ridicule us and say that we're we're pricing our products just to rip them off because we can. It's. It's really quite heartbreaking. Yeah, um, very much.

Speaker 2:

What drove kind of my, my post? Um, and it wasn't breaking down the cost of the actual physical ingredients. It was talking about the costs associated with having special treatment, and I think like it's not so much for businesses like mine, but one of the posts my post got shared into one of the big gluten-free Facebook groups and the comments on that just popped off right, and so I just jumped in and had that conversation and most of them were, like I said, like really nice comments. We actually had some really great conversations, yeah, and people were really listening, which was awesome to see. But there was a lot of comment around why am I paying the same price for a meal at a restaurant when I'm removing things from it? You know, yeah, oh, I can't have the chips, but't have the chips, but I'm still paying the same price or paying a gluten-free surcharge, and I'm trying to explain to people that you are essentially paying for someone's wage to give you special treatment.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, um, you know, and unless you've worked in a commercial kitchen, you probably don't really realize, uh, how big of a deal that is like, particularly if you're then wanting to take it one step further and going well, we expect these people to be knowledgeable about cross-contamination. So they're cleaning or prepping a certain area of the kitchen, they're stopping what they're doing on the line, they are gathering different ingredients. They are literally making one plate for you. Yeah, and person who's that their wages have to be paid for somehow? Yeah, that's true, and that's very much where the costs associated come from in that instance. Yeah, it's you know, and it's also.

Speaker 2:

I think a lot of things people don't realize is that, at a small scale, these places who are offering a gluten-free bun or a gluten-free pizza base, they're not necessarily buying them at wholesale price. They're walking into Woolworths, like you and I are, and buying the bread on the shelf and paying retail prices, using two pieces of bread from that packet and not being able to use the rest. So it's adding those costs up and that's really where a lot of the extra costs of you know, oh well, it costs an extra $6 for a gluten-free pizza base. Yeah, yeah, because it's probably a $6 pizza base.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and they're probably not actually making any more profit on that, which is so true.

Speaker 2:

Oh no. And then the food business is notoriously horrendous for low margins. Like in terms of all product businesses, we have very small profit margins at the best of times, let alone at the moment where the price of my butter and the price of my sugar just went up again the other day, but I can't keep increasing my prices to reflect it, so I'm just absorbing those costs. So it's just. Yeah, it's part of uh, of being able to service that side of the community. Just means it is naturally more expensive.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, definitely, and it is definitely up to us as consumers to support the businesses that we want to keep around and the ones that we love. And you know I'm all for supporting small business. I prefer to give my money to small business. I shop at our local supermarket that's independently owned. I prefer to support them. I do shop at audi a little bit because, uh, some of their products are good, but majority of my money I try to give to small businesses and support those businesses that are looking after us and doing right by us as celiacs and living gluten-free because, like you say, if you don't support them, then how are they supposed to survive? So very evident.

Speaker 2:

That's very evident right now in WA, because Helgas have stopped sending their gluten-free bread to WA and the Northern Territory. Oh have they? Yeah, so because it has to get sent across. I mean, obviously we've had a lot of railway problems and supply chain problems coming across the country in the recent years.

Speaker 2:

But they send their product to us frozen. Yeah, now that does, and because it's bread it doesn't have to comply with full cold chain laws. So it partially defrosts, but it's bread, no one really cares, and then it gets put back on a shelf or it gets refrozen or it's you know all sorts of things, and some of it was going moldy, yeah, and so people were en masse complaining to helgas about this product. What happens when you complain en masse to a big business?

Speaker 2:

yeah, they take the product away that's right too hard solution and literally they've turned around and said we will no longer be supplying gluten-free bread to Western Australia or the Northern Territory. Wow, and so now all of their breads that go to Queensland, south Australia, et cetera, are fresh breads, so they don't have to worry about this quality control. And that's kind of where it's a little bit like. I get it there's a problem, but sometimes when you just hound a business about a problem, their easiest solution is to take the product away, not to actually try and figure out another way to do it. That's it, this economy which you know, most solutions aren't easy. Yeah, and the other biggest thing I find which again I like to stand up for the little guy, but also the big guys like it's a big deal that Arnott's went and built a gluten-free exclusive warehouse for us, like just one factory for us. Yeah, holy smokes, yeah.

Speaker 1:

I agree, you know yeah, those products are going to cost more because they've got to pay for that facility yes, exactly, and for those listening that don't know much about australia, arnott's is probably our biggest like biscuit maker in the whole country. Like they make sweet biscuits they are the oldest, yes, and they make um like crackers and all sorts of amazing and things that we grew up with as kids. Tim Tams yeah, tim Tams Most of you have probably heard of Tim Tams. They've just brought out gluten-free shapes. My favourite is Jats. They were a childhood favourite of mine. My son's got non-celiac gluten sensitivity and when I first bought the gluten-free Jats it was like we were both in heaven.

Speaker 2:

I demulched an entire bag like straight away.

Speaker 1:

I was like, oh, that that went delicious with vegemite hot tip.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, okay, I might have to try. That was a childhood fate. So, yeah, so these businesses, you know they're making, they're making a massive goal of it, like to build a brand new facility for us. That is a huge expense. Like that is going to take a little bit of time for them to get that money back. And then, who knows, maybe, maybe they will be able to decrease their prices once they. You know, oh, absolutely, but at the moment I'm just grateful that we've got these options, like it's just another thing that we can have as a treat.

Speaker 2:

So, yeah, absolutely some of the other uh criticism I saw, and again it was all these things that came up in the comment section of that post, right it was. I'm like, oh my god, I spent an entire day and night responding to comments. It was kind of great, I know, right, and um, one of the comments was the packets are so much smaller when they're gluten-free but they're so much more expensive. And it was really interesting. And I think this comes back to a fairly significant issue we have in Australia at the moment, where the divide between making something and buying something is so big.

Speaker 2:

The average consumer has no concept of how things are made anymore, because we just don't make that much in Australia, right, a lot of it got taken away because of our labor costs and things like that, and so they don't understand the bare bones, basic of it, right? So you think about it. If that tim tam packet had to come in a normal sized packet, the price would be even higher. Yes, now is that going to be saleable? Probably not. So we make the packet slightly smaller at a more palatable cost and you're going to sell more. Yes, it's a smaller packet, but you get it at a more reasonable price that most people are willing to at least try or treat themselves with. It's not an everyday purchase. But let's be honest Tim Tams are not an everyday purchase.

Speaker 1:

Never thought about it like that. That is such a good insight, thank you.

Speaker 2:

And that's where it's. When you come from an industry where you do make and sell, you get this really like I look at everything in terms of peace, so it's like, okay, well, let's, you know, eight dollars for a slice of that. Times it by 12, it's not cheap. Yeah, so you know, it's, it's very, um, it's very interesting, but I think that divide is just getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. Yeah, unfortunately, and you can see it as well Like I'm a country girl.

Speaker 2:

I came from farm and country life and my parents were farmers and business owners in town as well, and watching the divide between city and country and the concept of where our food comes from, that's part of the issue. And just the average person isn't really aware of what goes into how things are made anymore. Yeah, and that's that's a conversation we have constantly in store when people come in and ask for a birthday cake and it's, it's not cheap, yeah, and I say, well, my biggest way to explain it is think about your hourly wage in a job. Right, times it by four. Now, add in the cost of the ingredients, okay, add in a profit margin, add in GST, and you can understand our pricing a lot better and suddenly people go oh, oh yeah, I hadn't thought of that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and again and it's that little bit of just going I have to pay my staff to do a job, yes, and I legally have to comply with those laws, yes, and that's what it costs to produce that product. Whether I make it or they make it, it costs what it costs. Yeah, but I think people are very separated from that now.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely yeah, totally off topic, but a similar situation. My girlfriend is a hairdresser and she always says people expect her to be cheaper than she is. But she's like I could charge the same amount as a plumber for an hour because I did trade school and I learned my trade over the same period of time. But people don't have this idea of oh, I can pay the same amount to my hairdresser as a plumber, but she is very well trained, she's an amazing hairdresser. But we think about it differently, don't we?

Speaker 2:

Absolutely yeah, you're paying for the experience, you're paying for the constant training. Like you know, we have a hair salon right next door to us and those girls are constantly training. They are constantly staying on top of new products and new techniques and new designs and new trends, and, just like we are in the cake industry, you know, I've just ordered some new things and I'm like, oh, this is new, this is exciting, could be a trend, might not be so you're gonna try these things yeah well, I've got to learn how to do it in case it does become a trend.

Speaker 2:

And it's a little bit like you know, we're constantly learning, constantly trying new things, and the same thing with with pastry school. You know you go through the same sort of qualifications that a plumber does. I'm not charging 150 an hour, however, wouldn't that be nice wow nice for you. I'd make one trick a day. That's just dumb amazing.

Speaker 1:

Oh wow, so that is so helpful, like I think that covers off so much that we wanted to talk about, like when we first connected. I'm like this is such an important topic and I have touched on it a little bit over the years on the show.

Speaker 1:

But I think you, having your background and your business, has just given us so many insights for people to kind of take away and think about. And, you know, please, listeners, support those businesses that you love, support those products that you love and be proactive in talking with others about your situation, because if we can shed a bit more light on this, then there might be a little bit more positivity in our community about gluten-free foods and certifications and things like that. So is there anything else you wanted to share with us before we share where we can find you?

Speaker 2:

I don't think so. I think the topic is so huge I could probably talk about it all day, because it really is like that's the tip of the iceberg, in terms of just the multitudes of reasons of why things cost more. Um, even just the fact that, like the white chocolate I use, I can't use australian branded white chocolate.

Speaker 2:

My white chocolate comes from italy, right, wow, yeah, yeah um and, like you, know, yeah, and even then, like uh, when we first opened in 2022, we went eight months without white chocolate because of the shipping container problems. So, like our chocolate just wasn't coming into the country and when it was, um, it was sitting on docks for a really long time, it wasn't getting unloaded and then it was just the price went through the roof. Yeah, right, um, so it's. It's so many parts of this conversation, but I think what was really great and I hope people take away from this as well is there were some really great conversations that happened in between me and some of these people in these comment sections, where people were really open to understanding and learning and and a lot of them said you know what?

Speaker 2:

I actually feel totally differently now going out and eating in a restaurant, and I said absolutely, it makes you appreciate things on a different level, and that's where it's like you know what, taking the time to saying thank you to the chef, to the owner, to even the white person, and being like you know what? Thank you so much. I know my allergies are like a pain in the butt and I'm one of those people like I have a um list of allergy really random things like oregano and strawberry and like things, and I don't expect anyone outside of myself and my husband to accommodate yeah, yeah because they're just it's too hard, like right.

Speaker 2:

So when I dine out I'm selective. I'm obviously like you know, I can do gluten-free, I can do dairy-free, yeah, um, and then most of the others I'm like I'll just deal with the consequences. Little oregano in there, it's not going to kill me, it's not anaphylactic or anything.

Speaker 1:

So you know um, it goes a long way, doesn't it?

Speaker 2:

it does, and and saying to people, even in in my store, where everything is naturally gluten-free and people go out of their way to thank me, yeah, for doing what we do. It's and even it's so special, yeah. Yeah, in the comment section of this post that blew up, we had people thanking us for not only taking the time to explain it, but for still doing what we do in this economy, in this world and in this kind of pricing increase, where everything we've touched is has gone astronomically through the roof. Um, you know it was. It just makes it that little bit easier for me to get up when it's dark and make when you're appreciated and you know that you love what you're doing.

Speaker 1:

It makes it so much easier, doesn't it? It does yeah, oh yeah, no, it's really good, yeah, fantastic. So where can we find you share all the all the okay, and so we're on all the things.

Speaker 2:

We're obviously on all the platforms. You can find us on Facebook, instagram. We're on Pinterest pretty massively as well, and that's just really easy. Champagne and Gumboots all one word. Just check your spelling of champagne, because not everyone gets that right. And then, obviously, you can find us online at champagneandgumbootscomau. And for those people who are coming to Perth, who are in Western Australia, you will find us at 660 Great Northern Highway in Herne Hill, in the heart of the Swan Valley. We're not that far away. I think a lot of people think we're like out in the sticks from Perth. We're like 10 minutes from Midland, so it's beautiful wine country and we have a beautiful little shop and store that you can come visit us sounds amazing.

Speaker 1:

Oh, oh, my God. Yes, well worth the trip, I would imagine. So one day I will get there, I'm sure.

Speaker 2:

And I can tell you about all the great gluten-free restaurants in the Valley, as well, we have a lot of great options too.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely Sounds amazing. So we will put links to all of that below and you can get in contact with Stacey if you're getting married. If you just want an amazing cupcake pastry, you have to go check out her beautiful store, and if you can't get there just yet, make sure you have a look at all the beautiful pictures online and check out Pinterest as well. So, thank you so much, stacey. I really appreciate your time today and I've learnt so much, which is always amazing, and, yeah, I appreciate your time Awesome.

Speaker 2:

Thank you very much for having me and it was really great and I hope everyone takes something a little bit away from this podcast. I really think that's cool, thank you.

Speaker 1:

All right, thanks, lisa Bye.

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Belinda Whelan

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