Sisters Casey Bowie and Sara Anning grew up on a cattle station in western Queensland.
PHOTOGRAPHY AMY HOLCOMBE
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Sharing food and love at the dinner table is so important to these sisters, they based a business around it.
WORDS JAYNE CUDDIHY PHOTOGRAPHY AMY HOLCOMBE
Sisters Casey Bowie and Sara Anning grew up on a cattle station in western Queensland.
In 2015, the sisters started Black Rock Beef Co, a home-style frozen food company.
"We were so green! When we conceived the idea for Black Rock, we sat down at the table and googled ‘how to start a frozen food business’.”
The sisters agree that Casey is the best cook and the inspiration behind their delicious products.
While Sarah has the business brain after studying business at Bond University.
The sisters now have kids of their own.
"But there's no real time off when you have a baby, especially when you have your own business," Casey says.
"I was in the room with Sara while she was in labour, asking business questions because I had to get back to some emails."
The sisters are now focused on getting Black Rocks onto more family dining tables.
Sisters Casey Bowie and Sara Anning grew up on a cattle station in western Queensland.
PHOTOGRAPHY AMY HOLCOMBE
In 2015, the sisters started Black Rock Beef Co, a home-style frozen food company.
PHOTOGRAPHY AMY HOLCOMBE
Sisters Casey Bowie and Sara Anning had many formative conversations around the dinner table. Those times are so valued by the sisters that they wanted to share that ritual with other families across the country.
Born into the sixth generation of a western Queensland farming family, their childhood was typical: chasing brothers Luke and Jake around the yard and helping their parents, Sam and Nyree, run their cattle station: 60,000 hectares called Wongalee, 33 kilometres north-east of Hughenden.
In 2015, Casey and Sara became partners in Black Rock Beef Co, a home-style frozen food company driven by a passion for ensuring the evening meal remains the cornerstone of family life, for themselves and the broader community.
They’re both in furious agreement that Casey is the best cook and the inspiration behind their delicious products. This talented 33-year-old has proved she can turn her hand to anything. Previous vocations rattle off like the ingredients list for a Black Rock lasagne: delivery driver, pouring beer, audio engineering, hospitality and even beauty therapy.
But by the time she was in her early twenties, Casey felt ready for a change and she was easily convinced to move to the Gold Coast, where Sara was studying business at Bond University and nannying for a family — a job she thought would resonate with Casey. They were both responsible for cooking for their young charges and stocking the freezer with family meals. The families they worked for loved those meals. Simple, delicious and convenient. These were the seeds from which Black Rock would grow.
Sara studied business at Bond University.
PHOTOGRAPHY AMY HOLCOMBE
Casey juggled rearing her two sons with building the business.
PHOTOGRAPHY AMY HOLCOMBE
“We shared a room and a bed and the bathroom was about a metre away from the bed. It was too close and it meant a lot of fighting,” says Casey. “We were so young — I was 23 — and
I think we were still learning about each other. Not to mention navigating a new business. We were so green! When we conceived the idea for Black Rock, we sat down at the table and googled ‘how to start a frozen food business’.”
Black Rock now operates from a custom facility in Townsville with three full-time employees, producing more than a thousand meals a week. Currently, the staples are savoury meat parcels, bolognaise mince and lasagne, though they are looking to branch out with pies, using beef sourced from the family’s cattle farm.
The banter between siblings is easy and funny, with a teasing undertone that indicates friendship and respect. It seems that tumultuous share-house arrangement did no long-term damage. And motherhood has not only cemented their business resolve, but also their commitment to each other.
“As massive and life-changing as birth is, your business doesn’t stop. As partners, we can’t go and make big decisions without each other.”
Casey’s firstborn son Reuben, now four, arrived during a particularly intense period of expansion. “He’d be in the kitchen with us and would get so upset on the days that we chopped onions and everyone’s eyes would sting. And I would just be like, ‘What am I doing? This is the worst’,” says Casey.
“But there’s no real time off when you have a baby, especially when you have your own business. I was in the room with Sara while she was in labour, asking business questions because I had to get back to some emails. As massive and life-changing as birth is, your business doesn’t stop. As partners, we can’t go and make big decisions without each other.”
So — with babes in arms — Casey and Sara continue to build the business. One of their greatest challenges has been keeping up with demand.
“We’ve increased production tenfold,” says Sara, who at 31 is two years younger than her sister. “We capped out a while before we were able to secure a bigger cooking facility, so much so that we actually had to withdraw from distributing to southern states, which was a disappointing setback for us.” They dug their heels in and committed to expanding, determined to include an online forum, despite the exceptionally busy period coinciding with the birth of Casey’s second son, William, 18 months ago.
As the business grew, so did the family. They were joined by their husbands, Dylan Bowie and Luan Krasniqi, then the children came. Now the dining table is bigger and the conversations livelier as the next generation begins to experience the magic of shared meals, along with friends like Josh, Perry and Boston.
Sara is only a few weeks into her new role as a mum to tiny Adaline, and the sisters are refreshed by the notion of not having to prepare onions with children in tow. Instead, they’ve switched to more strategic roles, to focus on the long-term plan.
“Our procedures were not exactly streamlined — we were the ones in the kitchen cooking — so to be able to employ staff we really needed to make that change quickly.
“The vision is to see Black Rock on more dining tables: families getting to spend time together, like we did. Every single night Mum and Dad made a big effort to make sure we had dinner as a family around the table, and that experience means so much to us,” says Sara.
The Anning family are dressed by RB Sellars for an RB Sellars x Graziher collaboration.
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