Dream Cuisine rolls out Canberra’s first croissant home delivery service

If your dream weekend breakfast is a perfect croissant or pastry delivered to your door, then Owen Saddler can make it come true.

The man from Dream Cuisine has been delighting market goers for about eight years with his quality macarons and pastries, and now he is reaching out to those Canberrans having a lazy Saturday or Sunday at home.

“There’s a lot of people who don’t ever go to the markets. We’ll try to reach some of those other people, who don’t want to get out of bed super early on a Saturday or Sunday morning to get to the markets. That was the idea,” Saddler said.

He launched Canberra’s first croissant home delivery service a couple of weeks ago in the inner south and north, and this weekend Saddler’s rolling it out to selected suburbs in the Woden Valley, Weston Creek, Belconnen, and Gungahlin, with two drivers – one heading north and the other south.

The following week will be Tuggeranong’s turn, as well as Molonglo and the rest of Weston Creek, with the outer suburbs of Gungahlin and Belconnen also in Saddler’s sights.

Six products are on offer  – three croissants – classic, almond, and chocolate; two snail scrolls – sultana and vanilla custard, and salted caramel; and the blueberry Danish. Minimum orders are $20 with a $5 delivery charge. Orders over $50 and you can forget the delivery charge.

Saddler said he had considered contracting a separate delivery service but decided he could do it himself.

“Even though they’ve got a good platform they do take a lot of your margin, so I thought I could probably just do it myself because I already had the van and logistics,” he said.

The plan is to focus on a minimum quality range of products and roll out the service gradually.

The delivery window is between 7 and 9 am, with customers called in advance so they know when their dream breakfast will arrive.

The website will also soon have a dynamic map with a live feed showing the location of the delivery van.

Saddler has a varied background, studying engineering at one point with a little bit of journalism thrown into the mix, which all helps him negotiate some of the challenges in the kitchen.

“It does surprisingly really help with problem-solving and troubleshooting. A lot of the time you’re so dependent on machinery in this game but you have to understand the limitations of the machinery and all sorts of environmental factors that affect things,” he said.

“There’s plenty of engineering problem solving that can be done in pastry making.”

So how did he get into the pastry making game?

“I like cakes,” he said. “I used to eat cakes a lot when I was young and then I started making them.”

He said it was quite extraordinary how much detail went into making pastry really well so it was light, flaky and delicious.

“I’ve been doing it for many years and I’m always finding ways to make it better,” he said.