Gemma Hansen: Over 3000 Units Of Popcorn Chicken

We also had a chat with Gemma Hansen, Head of Food and Beverages at Optus Stadium, who's gearing up for a massive weekend with Freo’s footy final on the horizon. She’s expecting a huge crowd - think 70,000 beers poured, 15,000 hot chips flying out the door, and plenty more. Lisa asked the important question: will there be any purple-themed food for Dockers fans? The answer is yes  but you’ll have to tune in to hear what’s on the menu!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So the big game is tomorrow. One of the things
you know, other than the game is the catering a
lot of people. It has to be.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
All the thoughts are on the game, but are unless
every quarter time.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
Just roll up on the bus just before the game.
This has been in preparation all week and Jemma Hanson
is the head of food and beverage it up to stadium.
Good morning, Jemma.

Speaker 3 (00:24):
Good morning, what a huge job it is.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
That hasn't been a crazy.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
Week, It definitely has. Yes, we've been working furiously all
week and very excited for everything to come to fruition tomorrow.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
Well let's talk numbers. How many beers? How many hot
chips are you expected to go through tomorrow night?

Speaker 3 (00:43):
Yeah, so bees is always a big one, so we'll
be looking at over seventy thousand beers. So that's around
hundred kegs which will have come in this week from
Gauge Roads in Fremantle, so nice and close chips wives.
Hopefully around fifteen thousand hot chips sold. We've got a
bunch of products from New West which is a local

(01:04):
w A supplier, so fifteen thousand chips, over three thousand
units of popcorn chicken, over two thousand fish, so things
like our fish and chips and our fish tacos and squid.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
So some really big numbers there with the with the
weather changing a little bit for the game obviously from
what it had been earlier in the week, a little cooler,
a little damper. Does that change your food plans, what
you serve, what people want?

Speaker 3 (01:28):
Seeing that people, yeah, they're probably going to be keener
for a nice hot food item, so even things like pies.
So we have around five thousand missus Mac pastry products
that'll be offered in the general public spaces and then
twelve hundred mini pies and mini saucy drolls that'll be
in the premium hospitality spaces.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
Will there be anything purple? Is there any purple theme
going on?

Speaker 3 (01:55):
Definitely?

Speaker 2 (01:56):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (01:57):
Our team gets really excited when we get the thing
of new menu items to do for events like this,
and obviously you can't go past purple for a PreO
Dockers game. So we have our anchor smashdown Burger. So
it's a smashed beef patty topped with everything you could want, cheese, lettuce, tomato, pickles,
red onion, burger sauce, aoli and it's coming in a

(02:19):
purple bun, and that purple bun also has an anchor
dusted on top of it. Sure, there's you can't miss
the fact that it's for Fremantle.

Speaker 2 (02:29):
We've come so we've come so far from what the
food of the food used to.

Speaker 3 (02:34):
I know, we're definitely definitely looking at different ways to
do things. We're keeping in line with that anchor theme
as well. We have some Finals cupcakes that will be available.
So we've got more than two thousand Finals cupcakes that
have been made by a local potisserie, so Mozart Patisserie,
and that's going to be a rich chocolate cupcake. It's
going to have purple butter cream and then a white
chocolate anchor in it as well.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
If you're looking for purple food coloring this week in
the shops, it's sold. We read earlier this week that
you've had four hundred and thirty deliveries including sixty seven
pallets of kegs and forty eight trucks of soft drinks.

Speaker 3 (03:14):
Yes, so soft drinks is one that we definitely can't
forget to our soft drinks and water. We're looking to
go through probably around thirteen thousand soft beverages and then
on top of that another seven and a half bottles
of water, So there's definitely options there as well for
everyone to stay hydrated.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
Do you know what the quickest you've ever sold out
of something is?

Speaker 3 (03:33):
Well, we generally want to make sure that everybody can
get our products up until halftime, but we do just
generally recommend that you get in quick at halftime because
some of these products, particularly, I think the purple burger
will be going very very quickly.

Speaker 1 (03:47):
Absolutely everyone's going to want a purple Burger.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
I was just going to ask you, by any chance,
do you when you're not working here at Optics Stadium,
do you do kids' birthday parties and stuff? Because I
think I think you would be in command for the
organizational skills.

Speaker 3 (04:03):
Well, the thing is, it would be probably tough to
work in lower numbers. I think sometimes when we're working
in thousands and palettes and you know, hundreds and hundreds
of cartons, to scale down might be the issue. I
might over cater.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
Oh you just have a really big party, Russ, Yeah,
very big party. Yeah all right, Gemma, Well we're really
looking forward to the game tomorrow. Thanks for keeping us
all fed and water watered. No one wants a hangry
football fan.

Speaker 2 (04:33):
And so when you're lining up to get your food
at halftime a quarter time, just remember Gemma made it happen.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
Thank you, Jemma.

Speaker 3 (04:41):
Have a great day tomorrow, guy, all right, you will
do you too. Thank you.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
Bye.