Sponsored content provided by B&E Foods
B&E Foods is a full-service Australian foodservice supplier and the only one you need. With over 6,000 products spanning Western and international proteins, seafood, dry goods, specialty groceries, cleaning supplies, and packaging, B&E gives independent restaurants and hospitality groups access to everything required to run a professional kitchen through a single account, a single order, and a single delivery.
Crucially, B&E is more than a distributor. Two specialist subsidiaries sit within the group, each created to solve a specific operator pain point:
- Melco Foods — B&E’s value-added food subsidiary, specialising in cooked proteins and ready-to-use formats developed to reduce kitchen prep time and labour costs.
- EJ Eco — B&E’s eco-friendly packaging subsidiary, created specifically to help operators reduce one of hospitality’s most persistent consumable costs.
Together, these three brands form a genuinely integrated supply solution — one that’s been built from the ground up to support consolidation, not just enable it.
| Total product range | 6,000+ SKUs across all categories |
| Food range | Western & international proteins, seafood, dry goods, groceries |
| Value-added products | Melco Foods — cooked proteins, ready-to-use formats |
| Packaging | EJ Eco — eco-friendly: paper, sugarcane, wooden cutlery, custom print |
| Cleaning & hygiene | Full back-of-house range included |
| Sourcing | Direct from origin — wider range, no intermediary margin |
| Delivery reach | Nationwide manufacturing fresh poultry & meat with next-day delivery |
| Ordering | 24/7 online platform — one account, one invoice |
The Real Cost of Managing Too Many Suppliers
Managing a restaurant means making hundreds of decisions before a single plate leaves the kitchen. The last thing you need is your procurement adding to that load, multiple supplier accounts, multiple ordering systems, multiple delivery windows, and multiple calls when something goes wrong.
Supplier sprawl rarely shows up on a P&L, but the costs are real: hours of admin, ingredients that vary week to week because the same product comes from different sources, and storage chaos that follows deliveries scattered across the day.
For hospitality groups running multiple venues, the stakes are higher still. When each site sources differently, you can’t guarantee product consistency across your brand — and that inconsistency is invisible until a customer notices it.
Fewer suppliers doesn’t mean fewer options — it means having a partner with enough depth that you don’t need anyone else.
Why B&E Makes Consolidation Work
The traditional fear of consolidation is that you’ll sacrifice variety. A single distributor can’t carry everything your menu needs. A one-stop shop means generic, middle of the road product. You’ll have to give something up.
This was true once. It’s no longer the case, but only with a supplier who has invested in genuine range, not just a broad catalogue.
B&E’s food range spans Western and international ingredients: proteins from domestic farms and international markets, a wide variety of seafood species and cuts, extensive dry goods, and specialty grocery lines sourced directly from origin. By controlling its own supply chain bypassing the intermediaries that most Australian distributors rely on, B&E carries product that simply isn’t available through conventional channels. Operators building menus around global flavours, or anyone who wants access to product beyond what the standard Australian market offers, can source it all in a single order.
The result is a supplier relationship that actively expands your menu possibilities, rather than constraining them.
Melco Foods: Cooked Proteins Built Around Your Menu
Most distributors deliver raw ingredients and leave the rest to your kitchen. Melco Foods, B&E’s value-added subsidiary, goes further.
Melco specialises in cooked proteins and ready-to-use formats, products that arrive in your kitchen ready to plate, portion, or finish. That means less prep time, lower labour costs, and consistent output even when your kitchen is under pressure.
Melco’s team can also develop product specifically around your menu. If you need a particular flavour profile, portion size, or format that isn’t available off the shelf, Melco can create it. Rather than adapting your dishes to what’s available, your supplier adapts to what you need.
For groups standardising a signature dish across multiple venues, or independent restaurants that want a house product without the kitchen overhead, this is a capability that most distributors simply can’t offer.
EJ Eco: Cutting the Cost of Your Biggest Consumable
Packaging is unlike any other supply category in hospitality. It’s not an occasional purchase, it’s a constant, high-volume consumable cost that comes back every single week. For busy venues, packaging spend adds up to a significant line item that rarely gets the scrutiny it deserves.
EJ Eco was created specifically to address this. B&E recognised that operators consolidating their food supply were still carrying an unnecessary separate relationship for packaging and that by bringing packaging under the same roof, it could offer something more valuable than convenience: genuine cost reduction.
Because EJ Eco controls its own supply chain end-to-end, operators benefit from more competitive pricing and consistent availability than they’d find through a separate packaging distributor. The range covers everything a foodservice operation needs: paper bags, sugarcane containers, compostable bowls, takeaway trays, wooden cutlery, napkins, and more eco-friendly, available with custom printing so your packaging carries your brand, not a generic supplier’s.
When packaging moves onto the same account as your food and cleaning products, the savings are twofold: lower unit cost, and lower total cost of managing a separate supplier relationship.
For Hospitality Groups: Consistency at Scale
Multi-site operators have the most to gain from consolidation. When every venue in your group sources from the same partner same product specs, same quality standards, same delivery reliability brand consistency becomes something you can guarantee.
- Uniform product quality across all venues, every service
- Centralised ordering and invoicing one account for the whole group
- National reach via interstate depots, so new venues onboard into the same supply chain
- A single relationship that deepens as your group grows
Independent operators gain similar leverage: by concentrating spend with one supplier, you access pricing and service levels that are usually reserved for much larger buyers.
The Bottom Line
The operators winning right now are running leaner operations without cutting corners on food quality, menu ambition, or brand presentation. B&E Foods — supported by Melco Foods for value-added products and EJ Eco for packaging — exists to make that possible for every independent restaurant and hospitality group, regardless of size.
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