Max Achhorner
2024 | Trade - Chef
“I hope to work at Silo in the UK and bring this kind of restaurant back to Australia: No bins, no plastic containers and cling wrap, reusing everything and creatively dreaming up new dishes that match the theme of sustainability without compromising on quality, even using it to enunciate it.”
Arguably the best way to gain knowledge on certain cuisines is to experience the culture, the country and of course the foods contained within. I live in Sydney and aside from Melbourne it is the most culturally diverse city in Australia both by people and food, but in order to really experience a cuisine and the culture and history that accommodate it I’d love to visit the places all these different foods come from.
My employer is an incredible chef who has travelled relentlessly and worked at a dozen top tier restaurants utilising multiples cultures of flavours and spices which has spanned over a 20-year career. I aspire to reach the level he has worked so hard to attain.
The Global Footprints Scholarship is aimed at people interested in preserving the planet by discovering sustainable techniques abroad and applying them in Australia. I have been fortunate enough to travel to beautiful places like Asia and Europe, but I experienced them almost exclusively as a child who hadn’t developed an interest in cooking let alone the incredible culture these places offered. I want to experience and learn the meticulous techniques developed over decades even centuries so that I can carry them over to Australia and widen the culinary and more importantly environmental scope that has been created there to create a more sustainable kitchen industry.
A Global Footprints Scholarship is your opportunity to do more of what you love. What have you done at work that you are proud of or passionate about?
I have spent the last two years working at Ursula’s, a small neighbourhood restaurant serving incredible food like peking duck, fillet mignon and snapper. I have already attained a huge amount of knowledge by learning from the amazing team and of course the owner. Everyday I have dreamt of the opportunity to cook the hot dishes on the menu, and in the past month that dream has come true as I had the chance to cook snapper which has been incredibly satisfying, knowing I am now skilled enough to cook something already so expensive.
These two years have taken an incredible amount of commitment and focus, and while it’s a hard career it is also incredibly rewarding to be able to work in an amazing industry that inspires creativity and pushes me to aim higher. My journey is still in its infant stage and has a long way to go, so this scholarship comes at a perfect time, allowing me to absorb a huge amount of knowledge in sustainable cooking and bring it back to Australia.
A Global Footprints Scholarship is for you if you are passionate about creating a sustainable future. Describe something you have done at work or are working on, that helps the environment. Why is it important to you?
Sustainable practices like reducing waste and purchasing food from less environmentally damaging suppliers have become an important focus of cooking, and I believe it to be one of the most important elements of running a restaurant.
It has a huge influence on the environment and neglecting it, which many restaurants unfortunately still do, not only wastes environmental resources but also financial resources.
At my work there have been few established practices where we have made a habit of reducing our waste while prepping, cooking or cleaning but there is still more we could do. For this reason I want to go overseas and discover the incredible sustainable practices some restaurants have come up with like Silo, a small restaurant in London that has committed to having no bins meaning they reuse every single bit of produce that arrives in the restaurant.
They had crackers made of oyster and mussel shells and saffron which had been delivered from overseas via sail boat, they even provided a complimentary dehydrated leaf, all of which tasted incredible. This kind of restaurant is what I want to bring back to Australia, no bins, no plastic containers and cling wrap, reusing everything and creatively dreaming up new dishes that match the theme of sustainability without compromising on quality, even using it to enunciate it.
As a BBM Scholar you can choose to go anywhere in the world. Where will you travel with your Scholarship and why?
I have been incredibly fortunate throughout my life to be raised in a privileged family. I used to live in Switzerland and had the chance to travel lots throughout Europe. I appreciate all these opportunities I have gotten in my childhood, in fact they likely helped me develop my passion for cooking and now my career as a chef. With this scholarship I hope to visit the UK to work at Silo and learn from the founder Douglas McMaster. As such a young chef he has pioneered this sustainability concept and written a book ‘The Zero Waste Blueprint’ which I am very excited to read.
I’d also love to go to other parts of Europe like Spain, Norway and France. There are some incredible restaurants in these places, all focusing on sustainability which I feel is so desperately important to bring back here to Australia.
“Max shared a lot of information regarding what he is passionate about and what he would like to achieve. […] He is eager to learn and grow and influence food production. […] The language used and the research behind his application is evidence of a genuine passion and respect for the environmental issues we face.”
– Global Footprints Assessor Panel