All Part Of The Process

Sydney Morning Herald

Tuesday August 8, 2006

Helen Greenwood

A family company produces smallgoods that leave a big impression.

Kaczanowski's smokehouse leg ham won the gold medal at last year's Sydney Royal Fine Food Show. The ham is in hundreds of delis throughout NSW. But being a factory groupie, I went to the source of the prizewinner. At the door with the hanging plastic strips, I met Leanne and Mark Azzopardi, who run this "cured and cooked meat specialist".

There's no one here by the moniker of Kaczanowski. That was the name of a century-old butchery and smallgoods maker that had moved from the city to Summer Hill by the time Leanne's parents, Faye and Bryan Johnston, bought the business in 1986.

The Johnstons wanted to make cooked and cured meats, primarily hams and corned silverside, for wholesale, and the manufacturing premises behind the Polish-sounding sign was for sale.

For the next 10 years, they did both successfully. Then two changes occurred. The first was that Leanne and Mark, who trained as food technologists (and met as students) but were working for other companies, joined Leanne's parents' company. The second was that they moved to this much bigger, custom-built site at South Strathfield.

The changes led to a broadening of the product range to about 20, including what Faye refers to as the "more modern" products such as brawn, pressed ox-tongue, roast lamb and pork, pastrami, bacon and speck.

The recipes for products such as the corning pickle and the ham pickle, though, are traditional, concocted by Faye's father, an industrial chemist, nearly 30 years ago.

Faye, who works in the office, and Bryan, who is the historical repository, still have a presence in the business, especially for the regulars, many of whom are elderly and have been dropping in for years.

They know to walk straight through to the coolrooms where, Leanne says, "they have a rummage around". They can emerge with an Imperial ham (the best seller, a deboned leg) or an easy-cut leg ham (part of the bone left in) or a ham deluxe (loin). The soccer ball ham, by the way, uses only leg ham, too.

Corned beef used to be the big seller in the summer but in the past 10 years ham has become the cold-cut of choice, Bryan says.

That's why summer is the peak time and Christmas is bedlam. So either order ahead or ring them to find their hams and other goodies at a deli near you.

Kaczanowski & Co

29-33 Madeline Street, South Strathfield, 9642 3809, Mon-Fri 9am-2pm.

Best buys

Smokehouse leg ham, $7/kg; cooked silverside, $8.90/kg; roast lamb, $11.40/kg.

In the neighbourhood

Sydney Meat Market, 1-21 Madeline Street, South Strathfield

This is the meatpacking district, a collection of 12 wholesale meat businesses that allow the public to come and shop in bulk. Trucks thunder in all day but there's plenty of parking for cars. Look for E H Palmer for all meat cuts, poultry and game (9642 1666) and Murray Valley Meat Co for lamb, beef and pork (9642 8888).

© 2006 Sydney Morning Herald

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