This brand-new series follows the busy professional and personal life of celebrity chef Shane Delia as he embarks upon a number of projects in his hometown of Melbourne. As well as running his high-end restaurant, launching a new kebab chain, and caring for his family, he’s launching Feed the Mind - a project to get healthy food into school canteens.
How do you provide tasty, delicious and high-quality meals, whilst keeping prices affordable? It’s a problem Shane Delia is facing both in his business and with his Feed the Mind project. The answer for Shane is to look for local solutions, and he enlists the help of Stephanie Alexander to supercharge the school garden as a means to provide healthy ingredients that don’t need to be ordered from the shop.
In order to make his new business viable, Shane Delia needs to expand his business, and the first step is launching a new food truck. This will mean more staff are needed so he takes some potential new staff members to Melbourne food charity, FareShare to see how they cope in a commercial kitchen. Meanwhile, seeking inspiration for recipes for his Feed the Mind project, he uncovers the secrets to one of his favourite pho recipes in the country.
As well as supercharging the school garden with new plants and herbs, Shane Delia also takes a punt on two new staff members for his Biggie Smalls kebab store. Meanwhile, he continues to develop up healthy and affordable school lunches and has to look at how the addition of nuts is proving difficult with one of his dishes.
As launch day fast approaches, Shane Delia needs to bed down design, menu and fit out. He also continues to develop healthy meal options for his trial school, but it’s not just kids that Shane thinks should eat well – its blokes his own age too. Working with his local AFL Football club, he helps launch the Sons of the West – a 10-week program for men to teach them the benefits of a healthy body and healthy mind.
As the launch of Feed the Mind draws closer, Shane Delia turns his attention to marketing this venture to the students. Enlisting the help of his core group, they work on a social media campaign to help sell the concept. In order to win over junk-food addicts to a healthier lifestyle, Shane Delia attempts to improve the health benefits of some our favourite junk foods including hamburgers and sausage rolls.
Shane Delia scours Melbourne for the best food in order to prepare for his charity lunch, Men of Melbourne. After fishing for fresh scallops off Melbourne’s doorstep, he heads down the Great Ocean Road in search of an older and much rarer ingredient.
After months of planning, the launch day for Feed the Mind is here, but the big question is – are schools ready for a healthier canteen? And its graduation day for the Sons of the West, and Shane cooks up a healthy BBQ feast.