Cooking for charity with digitalpress

Digital print business digitalpress has unveiled a 350 page cookbook, Dish, with all of the profits going towards the Starlight Children’s Foundation.

Theo Pettaras, owner of digitalpress says the company has initially printed 500, and has presold already half of them, He says, “It looks like we will sell out of the first run. It has taken nine months to produce this.

Pettaras says, “The amazing thing about this is the fact done it off our own back, I literally did the printing job by myself on the weekend.”

Pettaras says he has a few people to thank, “Nathan Doggett from KW Doggett donated the paper with no extra cost. Rod and Ian at the Bindery in Melbourne beautifully bound the book and did it at cost. We just have to be incredible appreciative that they have done that. Goldcraft as well did the foiling of the slip cases at cost. Wengers Cutting Formes die cut the slip covers at cost as well, I am really grateful that these people have been able to support us with this cause.”

To create the book Pettaras teamed up with local designer Kelly Shields and got 44 chefs from prominent Australian restaurants to put in their childhood stories of food memories, and the recipes for their signature dishes.

Pettaras says, “We coordinated chefs from some highly regarded restaurants such as Longrain, the Apollo and Otto Restaurant. When 16 chefs became 44 we had to stop taking submissions, no doubt there is a second print run in the pipeline.”

 “We are not trying to blow our trumpet we like what we do and like that we have made a difference through print.  We can generate money and put towards a cause it is a lovely thing to do. We hope others can do similar thing with their companies in print.

“There was nothing to personally gain, our motivation was to give something back to the community in need. It is a mantra digitalpress have always practiced. I have been involved in a charity band and have raised over $30,000 for different charities, we have always been involved with the Sydney Children’s Hospital.

“It is important when running a business to have a social responsibility, yes we are here to make money, maintaining a reasonable lifestyle and taking care of your employees, but we must look after our community at the same time."

Pettaras held the launch event for Dish at the Sydney Children’s Hospital bringing four chefs with him from the cookbook to make food with the children. Broadcaster Channel 7 also documented the event.

“Starlight has a room there and the kids can go there to play and muck around.  We had 4 chefs arrive and they were able to do cooking demonstrations and the kids interacted with the chef. The thing about it all was I walked away feeling so humble. When you see those kids walking around with no hair or with drips and tubes on them; to see the smiles on their faces, it puts a lot of things in perspective. I learned a lot from that and to be positive when things are down, these kids are incredible.”

The Dish cookbook is $75 and the limited edition version is $100 and can be purchased from http://dishcookbook.com/

 

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