Alan Tompkins

Hi Alan, where shall we start? I'm really glad that you got in touch with me. I think one of the things that is really important to me when I talk to chefs is wellbeing. I think because I'm a teacher I work with young women, and increasingly mental health is a really big thing that we need to discuss. Especially after Covid. But let's start with how you got into the industry and then what led you to your 'breakthrough' as you describe it.

I basically got into cooking out of desperation. I think I was 23 when I first had an inkling that maybe cheffing was the thing for me. I completed year 12 and had no idea what I was doing. I did business studies for a while because accounting was the thing I did the best at school. But I started to feel that that really wasn't going to do it for me. Then I went through a bit of a hating the world stage, I was very angst ridden. I wasn't my own biggest fan for a while there. There wasn't any real inspiration behind what I wanted to do with my life. I am Geelong born and raised and I discovered a 15-week hospitality course. It covered everything from bar work, the floor and the kitchen, and something about the kitchen that just sort of started speaking to me in ways that nothing really had before. When one of the ladies running it asked what my favourite part was? I said, without hesitation, the kitchen, I loved it. She asked whether I had signed up to the 15 week commercial cookery course? Which of course I knew nothing about. I pretty much signed up on the spot. The kitchen was talking to me in ways that nothing had before. I felt like I had a bit of a purpose and had of a bit of a chance to make something of myself. I didn't look back from there. I started working in restaurants and pubs in Geelong. This was before Geelong became the cafe scene it is now. I think I could only name one or two cafes back in the day in Geelong.

I love the waterfront in Geelong.

Yes. It is pretty impressive. I worked at the Sailors' Rest for a while, which is down on the waterfront there, which is a very iconic venue. Its actually where the first ever Burnt Chef Project information session was held. I held it there, which was sort of like a bit of a homecoming for me, which was pretty cool and it was a good little springboard to what was going to come.

And what do you think it was about being in the kitchen that appealed to you? Do you think it was being part of a team or the creativity or the satisfaction of making people happy?

I think it was a bit of everything. Of course it's a long, long time ago now, but there was just something about the organization and the camaraderie that we had. There was always plenty of banter going on. As much as you had to be serious at the right time, there was always room for jokes and humour, which I've always loved. I think it was about having a bit of a meaning and belonging to something for the first time.

Were they supportive kitchens? I'm imagining 20 years ago that there might've still been that kind of yelly chef situation.

No, I don't think I really got caught up in too much of that. That was more from owners and managers. I think when I started, that sort of shouty chef was starting to calm down a little bit. I'm sure there are a lot of people that would say otherwise, but I think I was quite lucky through my career and even when I eventually moved up to Melbourne, 11 or 12 years ago now, and I started working in the cafe scene more, there was even less of that. I think if anything, I was always harder on myself than anyone else, which I think is one of my biggest flaws. No head chef or manager ever told me off if I did something wrong because they knew I was beating myself up more than they ever could. I was very hard on myself, which I think, maybe just stemmed from being late into the industry and maybe trying to catch up a little bit. But I think it also benefited me because even from my earlier years, I always took the younger chefs and the apprentices under my wing. If I saw that they were struggling with certain dishes or prep items, I was always the first one in there offering a little bit of advice and just sort of, you know, being a, being an ear to talk to. I think that has carried through all of my career and has even got me to where I am now, both professionally and with what I'm doing with the Burnt Chef. I think that was one of my huge passions; supporting the younger guys and knowing how hard it is, especially when you first start in the industry.

It's a hard environment; it's hot, you've got sharp knives, you've got time limits and then reviews and then theres the unsociable hours.

I think that's the big one; the unsociable hours. You miss out on so much. I think sometimes we are guilty of being our own worst enemy because we always put work first. I always put my work first.

Is that because that's what your identity is, do you think?

I think so. I think it was the unwritten rule that if you're rostered on, you have to be working and you can't ask for Saturdays and Saturday nights off, to go to someone's wedding or something. It seems to be the way it's always been and you come into the industry thinking that that's it. Basically your weekends are over and work's always put first. It's the old phrase; it's the way it's always been, mentality, which is part of what I want to try and not so much change, but tweak a little bit within the industry. I don't think I can change the industry. But I can definitely tweak it a little bit.

So what happened then? You were enjoying it and there are lots of elements that were really great about it for you. What was the point when it all became too much?

I don't want to use the C word, but I think Covid had a lot to do with it. A lot of going in and out of Lockdowns where you would see your hours go from 60 hours a week to 15 and then back up to 60 and back down and in and out of take away only. You lose your creativity a little bit going from a beautifully presented plate to then cramming food inside a polystyrene box, which as soon as you close that lid, the quality of the food is diminishing by the second.I think that had a lot to do with it. At that time didn't know anything about self-care and even though I was very aware – I've struggled with mental health for 30 odd years, so even longer than I've been in the industry but you don't do anything about it and you just keep on pushing. It got to the point where like an elastic band, the more you stretch it out, it's going to snap. Unfortunately it happened twice in the space of six months, in two different venues. The first time I thought it was just because of Covid and the stress of it all. Then when it happened the second time I was in denial a little bit. I went back to work thinking I was ready to go. But I think deep down, I was only really saying that because cooking is all I'd ever known and I felt like I didn't have anything else to fall back on. I think there are a lot of people out there in similar situations. I don't want to use the word trapped. But they feel this is the only skill they have and that they will struggle picking up a job in a different industry.

I read that you searched on Spotify for answers, which I thought was a really interesting approach. Is that because you liked to listen to podcasts already and you thought someone else must be talking about this?

I'd started seeing a life coach. He has his own podcast, where he's very blunt and he's very to the point. I was listening to all of his podcasts and then one day, I was just out walking and I put in, chef's mental health in a podcast search, just see what was there, see what was available. The Burnt Chef Project was the first thing that came up. I listened to one of the podcasts on that walk and I thought, this is exactly what I've been thinking about for a long time.

Through Covid I'd studied Cert four in Mental Health and I had this little idea in the back of my head of working with chefs and their mental health but I thought nothing would come of it. I thought I'd do some study and learn a little bit more about it. In the back of my head I had a bit of an idea of what I would love to sort of aspire to at some point. Then The Burnt Chef project was actually doing exactly what I wanted to do.

What is the Burnt Chef project?

The Burnt Chef project was started in 2018 by Chris Hall who had his own mental health struggles. He had a lot of friends in the industry and a lot of associates in the industry where he could see that there was a bit of a common theme that mental health was an issue. He decided to do something about it and set up a non-profit organization back in 2018. He basically started off just selling merchandise to spread the word a little bit. Then it branched out to doing culinary school talks. There's even an app where you can do short courses. He's obviously started to branch out further than the UK now.

I knew nothing about the ambassadorship but I emailed. I thought I was emailing Chris, but obviously I would've gone through various sources. I said, look, I love what you guys are doing and then I explained my situation a little bit and said that I wanted to at least try and start something up similar here. Thats when they suggested the ambassadorship. I went away and I read about that and I think I more or less signed up on the spot, thinking there'd be a few ambassadors in Australia. In December, 2021, it was announced that I'd be the very first ambassador for the Burnt Chef Project and considering where I was at the time, I was unsure of what my next step was. I was very introverted, so it felt like an almighty challenge.

What does the role require?

Basically, we just spread the word. I had already set up my own little Facebook and Instagram page called Mental Health in the Hospitality Industry. So I'd already started postinglittle quotes and things from here and there and everywhere. Once I took on the ambassadorship role, I was still feeling a little bit unsure of where to take it. Little introverted me was wondering, how the hell am I going to do this? I was basically just posting a lot of the Burnt Chef stuff and trying to direct people to the website. Then I don't know where I got the idea, but one day introverted little old me decided to start doing information sessions.

I think about April, 2022, I had the first inkling that this is what I was going to do. I don't like public speaking, I'm very introverted, but for some reason there was something about this topic that was saying to me, just put it all out there. And all of a sudden I started opening up about my struggles. I started posting blogs and things just explaining various stages of how mental health has either enhanced or affected my chef career.

I started getting more and more feedback on it. Thats where the confidence started growing. I thought, you know what? We are going to do this. We're going to do an event. So that's when I contacted the guys at Sailors Rest and said that I wanted to do a bit of a dry run. I didnt want to hit the ground running in Melbourne.

And who came?

People from the industry. There were about 40 or 50 people. I stood up in front of 40 or 50 people and did not miss a beat. Everything that I wanted to say I got across and at the end of it, I had a lot of people just coming up to me and saying, this is the best thing for the industry.

I signed up two ambassadors on the back of it, one guy I actually worked with14 years ago, so it's really good to get back in touch with him again. Hes doing great things down in Geelong trying to spread the word.

As well as raising awareness about mental health particularly in the industry, does the Burnt Chef Project offer solutions or strategies?

They offer short courses and they offer mental health first aid training. I think at the moment people are looking at it as a little bit of a barrier being a UK organization, but the mental health First aid training you can get through the Burnt Chef project is exactly the same as here in Australia. I'm trying to show people that the Burnt Chef Project, even though they're 10,000 miles away is just as viable here.

Chefs are predominantly men and men predominantly don't talk about their feelings. They'll very much talk about football and beer but they certainly don't talk about their feelings, which is another thing, Burnt Chef tries to do. We try and break that stigma of mental health. Mental health goes hand in hand with physical health and we are very quick to talk about our physical health and about our scars and our cuts. But the subject of mental health is just not talked about.

I saw a statistic on maybe on your Instagram about that.

Four out of five hospitality workers all have at least one episode of poor mental health in their career. I've even spoken people that only did hospitality for a short time, and they said it had been one of the worst mental health periods of their life. Then 47% reported that they wouldn't talk about their mental health issues, which is huge. And again, a hundred percent of us would very easily talk about the cut we got from this and that, or the burn we got because we got too close to a pan. We all talk about it because these scars are visible and find it easiest to talk about it.

That's why I've been so open about my own mental health. I've left no stone unturned with being as open as I can just to what has happened to me and the effect it's had. That's where, with the Burnt Chef Project, we are trying educate people on how to spot signs of poor mental health in someone and how to spot signs in yourself.

Should it be part of culinary training given that the industry has such a high incidence of mental health challenges?

I think it should. I'm going to start up a little campaign to get what I call a Chef's Life unit into culinary schools. You don't really hear about the hours, or you don't hear about, in some cases, the poor pay coupled with just the intense pressure at times. Thats where the whole phrase, if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen, comes from. Its an awful way to think about it. We all have different tolerance levels. We all have different levels. Everyone has mental health. Its about how you deal with these situations that test your mental health. Some of the strongest people I've ever worked with have struggled with their mental health, which is purely because of the pressure of the industry.

Given that, as a chef you, it's all about nourishing people and being hospitable and all of those things, that needs to come from a strong place. The people providing that nourishment need to be strong and looked after themselves. I think it sounds like a really great thing to be part of and a great thing for you to have stepped into. And so you're not working as a chef anymore?

I am not, no. Just in the last two months, I've started working in mental health for ERMA 365 as a carer respite facilitator. We look after the mental health of people who look after people with mental health and disabilities.

How important. Wow.

I think it is very overlooked, We put a lot of emphasis on helping people with mental illness and disabilities, but there are these amazing people that are holding down as close as they can to a full-time job. They're running a household and they're caring for their son, daughter, husband, wife, mother and father. And this absorbs a lot of their time. Inevitably, if they're not on top of their own self-care, theyre not going to be able to look after the person they are caring for. I feel blessed every single day that I was offered this job. Ive also learnt a lot about how to approach it from the hospitality side as well. Its working on a lot of levels for me now. It has made me rethink how to approach the whole Burnt Chef project.

I'm trying to now get away from talking about what's wrong with the industry because we know what's wrong with it. We've read about it, we've, we've heard the tales. Rather than concentrating on what's wrong with the industry, I'm trying to move towards how we can change the industry, how we can tweak it, how we can make managers and owners more accountable for their employees mental health. People in hospitality often talk about being part of one big happy family when you are working in a cafe or a restaurant together. I think sometimes we need to concentrate on that word, family, a little bit more and treat our staff and our colleagues as we would our family, both mentally and physically. Again, I'll use the C word, because Covid has maybe made some owners and managers aware of how much they have needed to rely on staff because we've gone through staffing shortages and things like that. I think little changes are happening and I think as much as we think Covid was completely negative, I think it's had a little bit of a positive spin. There is still so much to do and that's why I'm so passionate about it. I feel like we need to sell it at the bottom with with the younger guys; educate them on mental health, their own mental health, their colleagues mental health. The big one is about having the conversation if you think someone's struggling. If you ask, how you doing, you seem to be struggling. Are you okay? And they say, no, if you don't have these skills that we're trying to educate people on, then they won't know how to help someone. Hopefully in the next 12 months or so I can do a few talks in culinary schools.

Then there is the other side, where managers and owners treat their staff the way they were treated. Id like to go to the managers and owners and say, you know, you have to be accountable for your staff's mental health. That whole thing about the customer's always right and the customer's always put first, I think if you put your staff first and treat your staff right, the rest of it's just going to fall into place because you are going to retain staff if you treat them right. If you've got that open door policy where someone can come to you and say, look, I'm really struggling today, can I just hang back and do prep? Or, I'm struggling today, we're a little bit quieter, can I go home early? Its about people being able to talk about mental health as though they're talking about their physical health. I think there will there will be a lot of pushback from older owners. But we have to try.

It would be great to have some kind of, not accreditation, but if businesses had a little Burnt Chef tick of approval, I think the public would really love that as well to know that this is a business that cares about its staff and has taken measures to work on mental health.

That's a really good idea.

Tell me about the postponed Movember event that is happening soon.

It has been organized by two ambassadors for Movember. I will be on a panel speaking solely men's mental health in hospitality. We are trying to just get the word out there and giving people an opportunity to hear from different people across the hospitality industry. Its going to be a really, really good night. Food and drink is supplied by OKO, which in my eyes is one of the big reasons to get there. It's $50 plus booking fee per ticket with all the money going to Movember.

Thank you for all the good work you're doing and for your time today.

Burnt Chef Project