Working with the WA Good Food Guide: A Future Partnership Model

Why working with the WA Good Food Guide is not your traditional brand partnership experience.

A key ingredient in both nurturing the West Australian Good Food Guide brand and elevating distinct parts of our state’s food and drink story has been growing a strong partnership family.

Gone are the days when a logo and acquisition fee is the exchange for ticketing and a mention in a speech. The new model, which we believe we are leading, is providing an in-house, below-the-line marketing service which offers many of the same functions as the engagement of a third party agency; strategy, creative ideation, consulting, talent negotiation and more are all built into the monthly head hours allocated to servicing our partners. Our partners do not compete with website advertising. They are fully integrated, exclusively, into our channels year-round.

Throughout my career I’ve been passionate about fostering relationships that can develop over time and that have a strong sense of simpatico. This is, I believe, how we all do our best work and achieve a genuine return on investment for partners. We are thrilled to announce the WAGFG partnership family for our 2021 season and look forward to telling the story of not just these world-class brands but the talent and values behind them. There’s the return of long-term valued partners and the onboarding of new ones that we are sure can become a perennial fixture within our day-to-day mission as Australia’s only independent state restaurant guide and a publisher that bucks a trend towards “churnalism”. 

Early in May we announced a content partnership that we have long felt would help accelerate our vision far beyond our state borders, working with Tourism Western Australia as their content partner. We share a common passion and vision for the state and were thrilled that in WA Good Food Guide they see benefit beyond a team that can create high-quality online content, but also one that has invested in world-class talent, bringing together some of the most respected food and drink journalists in Australia.

Working with world-class West Australian producers is one of the joys of life at the guide. Harvest Road is no exception. A new force in the seafood space, we are playing a part in familiarising industry-leading chefs, both in WA and visiting from the east, with Leeuwin Coast Akoya oysters and this amazing story of excellence, sustainability and ingenuity. Harvest Road Group are an incredible champion of the industry as a whole; this week, they join our team in the south-west of WA to host a round table discussion at Vasse Felix with twenty chefs and owners to discuss labour shortages facing the region, with the view of tabling issues and exploring solution based outcomes.

While a relatively new enterprise in the premium electricals space, Hart & Co is instantly familiar; a new chapter for retail legend Rick Hart, who has been working with WAGFG since the day we entered the digital space. Rick and his team have worked with us to create the WAGFG | Top Chef Demo Series. These intimate masterclasses feature top West Australian talent like Jed Gerrard, Seth James of Wills Domain and Joel Valvasori of Lulu La Delizia alongside internationally renowned names like Matt Moran, Danielle Alvarez, Guy Grossi and Matt Stone.   

Our annual awards night celebrates the very best in Western Australian hospitality and primary production. It brings together the WA Good Food Guide team with farmers, chefs, front of house, restaurateurs, sommeliers, winemakers, brewers, distillers, our partners and more. It’s fitting that our venue partner, Optus Stadium, is one which has rapidly become an icon of Western Australia’s confidence and future vision.

Our partnership with Buy West Eat Best (BWEB) continues into its fourth year; BWEB are the presenting partner of our Producer of the Year Award – voted on by chefs – and this year have extended this to include a “Consumer Choice” award for Producer of the Year. We are delighted to work with this wonderful brand on promoting their initiatives throughout the year, such as Plating up WA and Buy West Eat Best month in October.

Also onboard is trusted premium knifemaker Wushtof, as our WAGFG cooking school and Top Chef Demo Series partner; Karrinyup’s exciting new food and beverage precinct bringing together leading WA hospitality operators; Volvo Cars Perth as the presenting partner for the second year of our fantastic Truffles Unearthed dining series, with Genuinely Southern Forrests and GetFresh Merchants also supporting this wonderful experience-based dining initiative.

Quay Perth is our official accommodation partner in 2021, providing a home away from home for our visiting chefs and editorial team. The level nine co-working space provides the perfect hub for review writing and menu tweaking. Quay sits amid the growing riverside district of Elizabeth Quay, a further statement of the growing confidence in not just our state capital but the state itself.

Ensuring best practices are upheld across our business and partnership management, we’re proud to work with our friends at Pragma Lawyers, a disruptor brand in the legal space in WA with a leading internal culture program for their fast-growing team.

We’ve been engaging with the next generation of culinary talent through our content and awards, and we’re now pleased to be doing the same for media talent in announcing an exciting new partnership with Curtin University. Talented students will gain experience and mentorship across our varied initiatives. This is something we’re particularly passionate about as it mirrors our dedication to talent growth not just in the hospitality space, but also thought leaders in the digital space and engaging the stars of tomorrow in the multi-media and digital space.

We still have space at the table for a small remaining list of award partners, announced in the lead-up to our night of nights at Optus Stadium in October. These opportunities leverage not just our own audience reach and standing within the hospitality and primary production sectors, but also the fact we are working with Seven West media to produce a special award lift out in October, our regular 6PR segment with Oliver Peterson and an ongoing outdoor campaign.

As an independent media and events company, with significant ambitions to expand into new verticals, we never lose sight of our number-one goal: to drive commercial outcomes for hospitality venues and WA producers and to inspire excellence in the service category both in the kitchen and on the floor. Our partnership family are critical in helping us realise this vision and we are thrilled to be working with such an incredible line-up of forward-thinking and innovative brands and organisations in 2021.

Please message me directly if you would like to discuss involvement in the 2021 awards night, or the broader WAGFG 2022 program.