Chef shortage could put Tasmania's fine dining reputation at risk, hospitality industry says

Tasmania's fine-dining reputation is at risk because of a shortage of skilled chefs and cooks in the state, the hospitality industry says.

The state's restaurants have been forced to look overseas to fill positions and predict the problem will only get worse in the peak season.

Steve Old from the Tasmanian Hospitality Association said there were currently about 150 vacancies for chefs, cooks and venue managers throughout the state.

"If we continue to have the shortage of chefs like we do, then we are going to have venues closing or we're going to have hours changing or we're not going to get the quality that we'd like," he said.

"The real worry is what we're going to do once we come up to the busy part of the season, closer to Christmas."

Hospitality operators say it is particularly hard to fill positions in regional Tasmania.

The RACT recently hired four chefs from the United Kingdom to work in their hotels at Cradle Mountain, Freycinet and Strahan.

"Its been incredibly hard, and incredibly hard to get people to locate to the regional areas of the state," said chief executive Harvey Lennon.

"I would hope that if we can lift our game a little bit within the state and encourage more people to get into the hospitality sector and in particular to work as chefs in this state, then we would have a lesser need to call on people from interstate and overseas in the future.

"Our medium to long-term objective is to employ Tasmanians."

Literacy issues among apprentices

Apprentices are in demand as new restaurants pop up.

But there is concern some apprentices do not have the adequate literacy or numeracy skills to complete their training.

Literacy has been identified as one Tasmania's big issues, with the gap growing between young Tasmanians and those interstate.

The TasTafe hospitality training facility Drysdale works hard to provide extra support so apprentices can make it through.

"A chef needs to have good writing, you need to have good maths, you need to be increasing, decreasing recipes, you need to be sort of on top of it," said spokeswoman Kimbra Lockley.

"Some will struggle and will fall away.

"I think everyone's wanting chefs, qualified chefs, they want the experience, they want the passion."

Apprentice chef Jason VanBeest is part-way through a cooking apprenticeship.

He has watched many in his training course drop out.

"It started out as a fairly big course but then a lot of people sort of died off a bit at the end," Mr Van Beest said.

"You've got set deadlines, a lot more pressure on you to finish things."

The industry is trying to promote hospitality to young people, who can be turned off by anti-social hours, poor pay and high pressure working conditions.

Source: ABC News, Emilie Gramenz, 10^th August 2015
Originally published as: Chef shortage could put Tasmania's fine dining reputation at risk, hospitality industry says