Meet the Buyer is measured in connections made on the day, but the value doesn’t stop when the show floor closes. For the delegates who come back year after year, the real test isn’t what happens at Crown Perth, it’s what happens six months later, when a product sourced on the show floor is still on the menu, still on the shelf, still earning its place.
Two regular delegates, The Corner Dairy in Doubleview and Novotel Perth, have been sharing what keeps bringing them back. Both say the same thing in different ways: WA produce is some of the best they’ve sourced, and Meet the Buyer is where they go to find it.
At Novotel Perth, sourcing local isn’t a box to tick, rather it’s built into how the kitchen operates. The team is known for treating each ingredient with the kind of care and respect that shows up on the plate, building menus around what’s genuinely available rather than forcing a fixed list of dishes onto suppliers who can’t always guarantee it.
That means working closely with suppliers well beyond the initial sale: Staying close to what’s coming into season, what’s scarce, and what’s ready to be trialled. When stock shifts, the team pivots with it, treating supply changes as a menu opportunity rather than a problem to work around. Meet the Buyer gives them a direct line to the growers and producers who can support that way of working. They get face-to-face conversations that are hard to replicate through a standard supplier list or wholesale catalogue.
For Corner Dairy, the value goes further still. The team makes a point of bringing kitchen staff along to the event, not just the buyers, because they’re the ones who become the real champions of the products once they’re back in the kitchen.
Staff get to meet the growers and producers behind what they handle every day, building a sense of ownership over what ends up on the pass. It changes the relationship with the product: Staff aren’t just following a recipe, they know where the ingredient came from and who made it. That connection, the team says, is part of what keeps staff engaged in their work, and part of what keeps them staying longer.
Between the two venues, a pattern emerges. Neither Novotel nor Corner Dairy treats Meet the Buyer as a one-off sourcing trip. Both come back to build ongoing relationships with the people behind the produce, and both bring more than just the buying team to do it.
It’s a reminder that the value of Meet the Buyer isn’t purely transactional. Bringing a wider team into the room, not just the decision-makers, turns a sourcing trip into something that builds culture back at the workplace: A kind of circular economy, where investing in staff experience and supplier relationships feeds straight back into product quality, service, and retention.
For delegates weighing up whether to attend this year, that’s the real pitch: Not just what you’ll find on the day, but what it can build over time, for your menu, your suppliers, and your team.
- Meet the Buyer 2026 returns to Crown Perth on Tuesday, October 20. Watch the videos and register as a delegate now at meetthebuyer.com.au.
