Letisha Frenken has been running Two Professors, a popular cafe in central Queensland’s Rockhampton for eight years.

The city’s population is more than 80,000 and growing, but Ms Frenken has struggled to recruit and retain an integral part of her business — chefs.

Ms Frenken said her business struggled during the busy Christmas period when they lost two chefs and closing the kitchen would mean a 50 per cent reduction in revenue.

“Half the amount of business comes from the food and the other half comes from coffee,” she said.

Ms Frenken empathised with local businesses closing their kitchens.

“It is almost at the point where it breaks your heart and we have come close to that with the kitchen,” she said.

According to Jobs and Skills Australia’s Skills Priority List in 2023, there was a national shortage of chefs, and the job was included in the 20 most in-demand occupations across Australia.

Emma Jackson works for Ms Frenken at Two Professors and is about to start an apprenticeship because of the business’s difficulty finding suitable chefs.

“The shortage is the reason why I put my hand up to go through with the chef’s apprenticeship because we cannot find them anywhere. We’ve outsourced from other cities and everything,” Ms Jackson said.

Losing chefs to the mines 

Rockhampton is a regional hub for numerous large mines — within driving distance of Blackwater, Moura, Emerald, and the Bowen Basin. 

Jordan Baker-Moller, the owner of the Goat Bar and Cafe in Rockhampton, said his business could not compete with mining wages.

According to Jobs and Skill Australia, the median weekly earnings for a chef is $1,330, or roughly $69,000 a year.

Job-search website Glassdoor said the average base rate for a fly-in, fly-out chef is between $78,000 and $94,000.

“It’s very difficult for us to compete with what a mining camp can offer a chef in terms of pay and also the type of work that they’re doing,” he said.

Mr Baker-Moller said the work was often less complicated, and there was less negative feedback from customers.

“It’s one of the only trades where it’s very normal and common for a customer to say, ‘No, I don’t like that, that’s wrong, I’m not going to pay for that,'” he said.

“You can’t do that with a plumber.

“The job is not easy, it’s very, very difficult.

Ms Frenken agreed.

She said her business also lost staff to the mines because of the higher salaries on offer.

“I think a lot of chefs can go the mines and get triple the money they can get in town,” she said.

However, Ms Frenken said working in a cafe or restaurant offered a great lifestyle for chefs.

Ms Jackson agreed, having turned her back on a boilermaker apprenticeship at the mines to work in hospitality.

“I definitely don’t want to go out in the mines,” she said.

Lack of apprentices 

Mr Baker-Moller said he was seeing fewer young people wanting to get into the profession for a range of reasons, including negative customer interactions and long, arduous hours.

According to the National Centre for Vocational Education Research, between 2022 and 2023 the number of people who began a chef apprenticeship decreased by 33.8 per cent.

In 2022, 355 Australians began a chef apprenticeship, a figure that dropped to 235 people in 2023.

Mr Baker-Moller said there was limited opportunity in the regions for chefs who wanted to experiment and take their trade more seriously.

“The chefs who are in the regions who are really passionate about their craft and are really creative,” he said.

“But often they will get lured away [to] metro areas where there’s a bit more of a demand for that kind of cooking.”