Rod McLaughlin spent over 30 years of his life working corporate jobs overseas.
But after returning to Stratford, he switched careers by opening a healthy food truck business.
Many Gippslanders who drive through Stratford on the Princes Highway from Sale will be familiar with the lot of land near the entrance to the town, where the Grill-em kebab truck sits in its shed. Next to it is the Gippsland Jersey van providing milkshakes.
Now the space has a trifecta of food truck options after McBrick Salads & Sanga’s opened in September. They provide healthy and fresh cuisine options to the public, including gourmet sandwiches, salads, soups, fusion foods such as banh mi and fresh rice paper rolls, cold-pressed juices and smoothies.
In a conversation with the Gippsland Times in April, Rod described the McBrick Health Foods business as “a dream and an idea”.
Rod knew he wanted to set-up shop in Stratford, where he was born.
“I’ve seen how Stratford has grown over the years. The block where Grill-em stands is a great location,” Rod said.
“I knew nothing about this type of business when I started. In my previous career, I gained a substantial amount of experience in marketing, business management and strategic development on a large, corporate scale. I then called people I trusted in this type of industry to give me good advice, and then there was no turning back.
“If you never believe in your dream and idea you will never do it, and ultimately you’ll never know.”
Rod had been looking for a career change that would benefit the community after seeing the food truck revolution take off in the United States.
“Travelling around the world, I noticed that the health-food side wasn’t represented in food trucks as much as they should, which helped bolster my vision for the business,” Rod said.
“I was inspired by Primanti Bros in the US, who produced large fresh sandwiches and burgers which had good quality meats and produce.
“Although they were not as healthy as you would hope, it still provided the inspiration and vision I strived to create, only in a healthy form.
“I lived in Honolulu for 22 years, and I almost had a sort of vision that if I wasn’t flying around the world doing my corporate job, I’d be doing the food truck.
“After Covid happened and I couldn’t return to the US and Asia, I resigned from my job and took on this new venture of doing health food cuisines through a food trailer.”
For 26 years, Rod was employed as vice president of development for DCK Worldwide, a large American construction and development company located on the east coast of the US mainland.
The ‘McBrick’ name is very personal for Rod.
“McBrick Health Foods is dedicated to my father Ronnie McLaughlin, who was known throughout the Gippsland region as ‘the bricklayer you need to have’,” Rod said.
“He was known as ‘Bricky’ or ‘Brick’ to many and will always be remembered as such. He was inspirational not only for what he had done and given to Stratford and surrounding regions, but through his enormous will, patience, and energy he demonstrated daily throughout his entire life.
“Dad built over 98 brick veneer houses, numerous tiling and feature slate jobs as well as 120-plus chimneys in Stratford, Maffra, Sale and surrounding areas.
“In January he passed away, aged 98. I didn’t want an ordinary health food name, and I wanted a tribute to him. He always lived a healthy and pure life.”
While the opening of the food truck was delayed several times, things moved quickly once Rod found his business partners – Rachel Hooft and her husband Rich – just a few months ago.
Rachael said that she and Rich were themselves planning to do a food van serving hot meals, before she noticed Rod in someone’s backyard, and decided to investigate.
“I saw Rod’s car there. Half an hour later he offered me a job, and now we’re business partners. It pays to snoop,” she said with a laugh.
Rod says he thought Rachael was from a competitor when he spoke to her.
“I thought she was a covert spy for an opposition just by the nature of the questions. And then I soon realised that she and Rich wanted to create something like this. So then I made an offer,” Rod said.
“I am so thankful that Rachael, Rich and their family came into my life. If I hadn’t found them, I would have had to find a healthy food chef instead, or not even opened.
Rachael had her own dream and an idea – “healthy yummy meals for the community”.
“I just absolutely love creating big healthy meals. I love big family get-togethers. I just love cooking. I’ve worked in cafes, restaurants, bakeries, all that kind of thing,” Rachael said.
“I thought it would be good to serve food to the community … families who get home from work completely stuffed and can’t be bothered cooking, they know they can go to Rachael.
“It’s incredible that I can do my dream and Rod can do his.”
A few nights a week, McBrick stops its daytime menu and instead does hot dinner meals from 5-7pm.
“We’ve been doing healthy versions of butter chicken, Mongolian beef, pasta dishes – and it has sold out on a few occasions. The feedback from that has been absolutely awesome,” Rod said.
He has been encouraged by others to open another McBrick’s food truck in another location, but doesn’t want to get ahead of himself.
“This is a big operation for a food van, so we’re going to stay here until we get things to perfection,” he said.
“Then we’re going to move around and do some big events.
“We’re tweaking the menu right now, seeing what sells, what doesn’t.
“I’ve gotta give (Grill-em co-owner) Taylan Çetin much thanks and credit for allowing us here and also for all the wonderful advice. He’s always helping us with his comments and input that he has learnt from his successful journey, and I respect that a lot.”
Rod loves being part of the Stratford patch of land next to Grill-em and Gippsland Jersey. The businesses complement each other when they’re all open, he says, but also when one or two are closed.
“It’s great when we’re all open and you see this block come alive. We open when Grill-em is closed so there’s not too much overlap, but there’s a common Saturday when we are all open and you drag a lot of people out,” Rod said.
“And it’s wonderful to give people an environment where they can come in with their children and take their pick of whatever they want. We’ve had cars pull up and a couple will go to Grill-em, a couple will go to Gippsland Jersey and a couple will come to us. That’s the most satisfying part of this.”
When Rod first sat down with the Gippsland Times earlier this year to discuss “a dream and an idea”, a large amount of work had been done, but it was still months away from its opening. Now that McBrick has finally come to fruition, this reporter wanted to know if Rod felt fulfilled.
“I feel like I’ve done my job. I feel very proud that what I set out to do with just a dream and an idea,” Rod said.
“I’m very fortunate to be helped by Rachael and Rich to get here. Rachael is a great organiser and cook who helped come up with amazing healthy ideas to offer to the customers.
“I’d be happy to just make one dollar over zero when we started. We’ve done well beyond that, but we’re so happy with the feedback we’re getting with the (portion sizes), the freshness and the value for money.”
It was a dream and an idea that had lurked around Rod’s head for years across the world.
His father Ronnie will always be a part of it.
“I wish he could have seen it,” he said.
