Balancing the Grind with Simmone Logue, Founder & Creative Director of Simmone Logue Fine Food Company

Simmone Logue is a chef, gardener, baker, host, entertainer, and the Founder and Creative Director of Simmone Logue.

1) To kick things off, could you tell us a little about your career background and current role?

The Simmone Logue business started with the baking of one cake 30 years ago in my small flat in Neutral Bay Sydney. I baked my favourite recipes handed down from my nannas and would walk the finished goods up a steep hill to sell to the nearest café owners.

Back then I had little more than a bowl, a hand mixer, a love of cooking, and a dream to sell my cakes to the world.

In those days I did everything myself. Baked the cakes, iced the cakes, washed the pans and floors, did the accounts, and even delivered the cakes. It was exhausting although exhilarating. 

In time, I bought an oven and a big industrial-style mixer and rented an old butcher shop in east Balmain, where I created a range of puddings with accompanying sauces to wholesale to the restaurant and café industry. I recognized that many chefs and café owners didn’t have time or resources to make their own desserts and needed a fairy godmother to deliver them to their back door.

From there I moved into the retail space and was one of the original comfort food purveyors offering top-quality home dinners to busy people wanting to put food made with love on their own dinner tables for their family and friends. I call it “Home meal Therapy”

Today the home dinner space is the fastest growing category in the supermarket with an annual uplift of 5.9% to AUD 1.6 billion in 2024.

Over the past years, I have grown my brand from baking that one cake to selling to the local café to becoming a household name selling my pies, quiches, dinners, and desserts to Harris farm, Woolworths, David Jones, Hello Fresh, and Qantas Airlines nationally.

It’s been an amazing journey to this point with much blood, sweat, tears, tenacity, and plenty of girl boss power. The business has a TO of around circa 20 million annually. 

My business card now reads ‘Founder and Creative Director’. 

2) What does a day in your life look like for you? Can you take us through a recent workday?

I can wear many hats in one day. I could easily be found in a kitchen developing a new product, I could be out in the field gathering foodie insights, taking part in PR and marketing activities, conducting sensory and quality checks on Simmone Logue products, in a market on a Simmone Logue stall, or in a boardroom with Qantas or Woolworths. Staying close to my team and my customers is a big part of my role also, to me, relationships are everything.  

3) What does work-life balance mean to you and how do you work to achieve that goal?

My attitude to work-life balance has ebbed and flowed over the life of the SL business. In the early days, it was all about work and everything else had to go to the wayside. I didn’t travel much, and I never had children.

Now I don’t believe in work-life balance. I think that term puts a lot of pressure on busy business people and entrepreneurs. I am a self-confessed workaholic and love it! I’m passionate about business and the SL brand and get a genuine kick out of it. It’s a personal thing I suppose, it’s about satisfaction.

I work when I want to work and play when I want to play and spend time with the people I love when that time is right also. Just so you know I am writing these words on a Sunday afternoon, sitting by the fire at my beloved Essington Park with a glass of red wine in hand. That’s balance.

I find an hour each day for my yoga practice and always meet my darling love at 6 pm for a pre-dinner drink. Five nights out of seven I prepare a beautiful nutritious meal and we dine out twice a week. That’s non-negotiable. We don’t own a television and prefer to talk about the day, exchange ideas and be with each other without the distraction of the noise from the outside world.

4) In the past 12 months, have you started or stopped any routines or habits to change your life?

My biggest new year’s resolution was to get out of my culinary rut. I did fall into a habit of going to the same restaurants and ordering the same meal.

Now we try a new place each week to keep my culinary eyes open and the inspiration flowing.

I’ve also started baking sourdough at the farm on the weekends. It really slows you down as it’s something that you just can’t rush. The bread is the boss!!!!  

5) Do you have any favourite books, podcasts, or newsletters that you’d like to recommend?

Four books that I love and have influenced me are:

• The Cook’s Companion by Stephanie Alexandria (AKA the bible)
• The Art of Being Brilliant by Andy Cope and Andy Whittaker 
• Dare to Lead by Brene Brown
• The E-Myth by Michael E. Gerber

I mostly listen to podcasts in the middle of the night as I often wake up to write an idea down and can’t get back to sleep. 

The Diary of a CEO by Stephen Bartlett helps me pick up great tips on how others apply themselves as dynamic businesspeople and great leaders.

River Café Table Four by Ruth Rogers for great insight into culturally famous people and their journey and relationship with food and their culinary memories and influences through their growing up.

Desert Island Discs to learn new music and it’s really entertaining.

Fearlessly Failing with Lola Berry. All about how to grow through challenges and embrace the lessons so-called failure can teach us.

6) If you could read an interview about work-life balance by anyone, who would that be?

If I could read a book about how to manage work-life balance it would be one written by our very own commercial director Shannon O’Connell. Shannon is such an awe-inspiring individual, and I marvel at her productivity, how she is so prolific with her workload and manages to keep immaculately groomed, incredibly fit, and be a great mother all at the same time. Quite incredible! 

7) Do you have any last thoughts on work, life, or balance that you’d like to share with our readers?

Just one more note on work-life balance, I think it’s good to be able to compartmentalise. E.g., be in the moment. I know there is a lot of talk about mindfulness right now, but I think there is a lot of truth in it. Be in the moment with whatever you are doing whether it’s work or play, and you should get a lot more fulfilment and satisfaction out of it.

That’s it from me for now, I’m off to put another log on the fire and pour another glass of wine.

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