Anchor Food Professionals in Fiji
Anchor Food Professionals are in the country to help upskill local pastry chefs and Punjas HORECA sales team. The Fiji tour involves visiting restaurants and hotels, hosting guest lectures and theory, and on job training around Fiji.
The Fonterra Business Development Manager, Debbie Van Niekerk during the Punjas and Anchor Food Professionals Wine and Cheese Tasting at the Heineken House, Denarau Golf and Racquet Club in Nadi on Wednesday commended Punjas staff and management for their outstanding performance in the area of service delivery.
Ms. Niekerk is also in charge of Business Development for Foodservice and Specialty Cheese for Exports. The food pairing event with wine and cheese was led by the visiting Anchor Food Professionals from New Zealand.
The event which was attended by executives from hotels, restaurants and cafes was an exciting one which also featured a display of premium and specialty cheese food pairing with alcoholic beverages.
In her address, Ms Niekerk said from a Pacific perspective, the company actually looked after multiple markets all the way across the Pacific, Fiji being probably the most prominent market.
“As a first time visitor to Fiji, I don’t think I have ever experienced such a warm welcome, such a great resilience of a great industry and just the way you have bounced back and made sure that your customers and your tourists that are flocking to your shores feel super welcomed is just amazing,” she said.
“We are really blessed to work in partnership with Punjas for many years now. I would like to thank them for the tremendous amount of energy that they put into putting this event together, I have never witnessed such passion and such interest in making an event work and under a very quick timeline.
“I would also like to thank them for their excellence in which they employ a great service that they deliver to all their customers and I am aware that they represent our brand with such passion and enthusiasm.”
She said Anchor Food Professionals was a long-standing brand that was something people grew up with in their homes in their everyday lives.
Punjas Group Managing director, Rajesh Punja said Punjas has had a long-standing relationship with Fonterra as the group has been distributors of their brands in Fiji for over five decades. The brands include Anchor, Kapiti, Mainland and Chesdale.
Mr Punja said both companies had grown as business partners and continued to strive to do better each year.
“We strive for excellence and provide you with support and benefit from our 87 years of experience operating in Fiji,” Mr Punja added.
Two-day training was successfully completed at the Coffee Hub outlet in Nadi. The owner of Coffee Hub, Mr. Zoro himself demonstrated to the participants the essentials of the coffee brewing process. Team of Punjas HORECA staff were also very fortunate to learn pizza making skills using a wood fire oven at Heineken House.
The visiting team will travel across the country to assist different outlets to boost local skills and talents around dairy work.