COMPANY HISTORY Specialty Foods (formerly known as Findon Meat Market) is a Meat Processing and Wholesaling Plant and Retail Butcher Shop located in the heart of the suburb of Thebarton, in Adelaide, South Australia. The history of the Specialty Foods Company takes us all the way back to 1964. The founder of the business, Mr. George Angelo was working at the time for a large Meat Wholesaling Company as a Butcher. George’s father had died in a train accident when he was fourteen years of age. He had six sisters, and was left with no other choice than to stop his schooling and to start working, in order to help provide for his family. At that time, there existed a busy little butcher shop in the Medindie area. In November of 1964, the owner of the shop was involved in an accident, which resulted in him being stuck in hospital for four weeks. The Store had been a good customer of the large meat wholesaling Company for many years. As a result of the accident, the owner/operator of the business had become permanently injured, and the business could no longer operate. George’s employers sent him down to the Medindie Butcher Shop to help them out and keep the business operating. It wasn’t long before George took over the business completely and was renting the shop from its owner. In 1969, George decided that he wanted to move on and made the decision to open his own Butcher Shop. He returned the shop to it’s owner and had saved enough money in a trust fund to open his own Butcher Shop (Findon Meat Market).In 1974, George opened a second Butcher Shop (Collinswood Meat Market). George began his business by solely retailing to the public. People were eating plenty of meat, it was cheap and people had large families. It was the time of the ‘Baby Boomers’. He was selling lots of sheep, and sides of beef too. However, as time went by, people began to have smaller families, and Australia’s population began to age, people’s tastes and preferences changed and hence the move was made into the supply of meats to the hospitality industry. In 1988, the production of ready cooked yiros meat began. The brains behind this new product was George’s wife, Lefki. Not all take-aways and restaurants had the time or the money to produce their own yiros meat. The idea involved producing a product which was already marinated & 90% pre-cooked. All that would then be required by the customer would be to heat it up and then it is ready-to-eat. With all four children now at school, Lefki was able to return to work. They started off by cooking once per week about fifty kilograms of diced up, marinated yiros meat on a hotplate, giving much of it away as samples. Sales quickly grew as the market demanded more and more LA Yiros. Lefki had created her own secret recipe blend of traditional herbs and spices and her traditional ‘Greek Style’ Flavour was capturing the market.		A few months later the move was made into a small shop in Collinswood with a four burner spit machine and a fridge and freezer too. The Yiros meat was initially branded “L.A. Yiros”, having the initials of George’s wife, Lefki Angelo. In 1993, sales of L.A. Yiros increased to the extent that the Collinswood shop became too small to facilitate production. George and Lefki then bought the business ‘Specialty Foods’ in the suburb of Thebarton. The Specialty Foods side of the company concentrated on the par-cooking of yiros meat and other associated products, whilst the butcher shop concentrated on the catering/wholesale and retail side of the business. By now, George & Lefki’s 4 sons were now working in the business and together made a commitment to take Specialty Foods to the next level. In 1996 the production began of a state of the art food processing and production plant at 8A West Thebarton Road, Thebarton. All the other locations were closed and moved to this one central location. Everything was moved under the one roof, with food service, boning, wholesaling, cooking, processing and retail butchering all taking place under the one roof at the same location. Specialty Foods would now begin its quest to become the Specialists In Red Meat & Yiros Products. The Retail Butcher Shop services the local public with only the best value for money quality products. The Wholesale Section services the hospitality market with exceptional quality and service and boasts a wide range of clientel from Takeaways to Schools to Sporting Groups to Clubs, to Yiros Shops to Top End Restaurants not only in Adelaide but across Australia. The Food Service Side is constantly increasing its National Distribution and Servicing markets across Australia with its Greek Style Yiros & Associated Products.
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