Our Bali Your Bali

Dean Keddells’ amazing Balinese recipe book was created to raise donations to help save a nation facing existential threat brought about by COVID-19. A&O is contributing to the packaging and order fulfilment for the book's global purchasers.

There’s no denying that we Australians love Bali. In 2019, before the world turned upside down, records were being set for the number of us travelling each year. Figures by the Indonesian Institute in Perth showed more than a 5% increase in 2019 over the previous year, with over 1.2 Million Australians visiting.

We love the people, we love the food, and we love the way of life. However, daily life for those living in Bali has changed dramatically since the heydays of 2019. The lack of global travel due to COVID-19 has been a catastrophe, affecting life even more than here in Australia. The Balinese economy relies heavily on the revenue that international tourism brings and, without it, the Balinese people are at risk, especially the most vulnerable.

The sharp downturn hasn’t just affected jobs; it has affected education, mental health and even essential nutrition. Several amazing charities are working tirelessly to provide crucial support to those who need it. They, in turn, need our help to continue their brave efforts.

Our Bali Your Bali

Dean Keddel is a renowned Australian chef who owns Ginger Moon Canteen and Jackson Lily restaurants in Bali. He has witnessed the situation firsthand and has created a fantastic Balinese cookbook, Our Bali Your Bali, to raise essential donations while reminding us of all culinary delights the country offers. He has partnered with renowned visionary publisher Jonette Wilton of Sunday Press, and together they have raised over $300,000 from the sale of nearly 4,000 books. At the time of writing, they are only 1,000 copies away from releasing a further $80,000!

We can’t think of a better way to support the work of 5 charities. It has been over one year since the vast majority of us have left Australian shores to take in such sights and smells of Denpasar and beyond— surely then, the next best thing would be to recreate them at home?!

The book is presented beautifully. Dean has included many regional traditional dishes (some of which are secret family recipes passed down through generations!) as well as some of the favourites from his restaurants. Who could resist making a classic Nasi Goreng or traditional fish curry, especially at this time of year?

Our Bali Your Bali is available to purchase as an Ebook, but in our (somewhat biased) opinion, the hardback book is the one to buy and keep forever. It is crafted to a quality that would suit any coffee table, let alone the recipe bookshelf.

A&O's role in packaging fulfilment

When a book is published (especially in large one-off batches), we know that, aside from the huge effort authoring and printing such a beautiful publication, there is a considerable task of packing and posting needed to fulfil the retail orders made online. As soon as we heard about the book and the charitable efforts that it supports, we wanted to help in any way possible. We are delighted to provide the packaging and fulfilment services at zero profit to ensure that as much of the total sales revenue as possible gets directed to the causes that need it. Our fulfilment services are ideally suited to sudden, large volumes of preparation and packaging with minimal set-up time to fulfil orders faster.

With the COVID-19 pandemic affecting logistics globally, there were delays in the hardback books arriving from the printer in China to our Sydney fulfilment centre. But we have taken delivery and are currently in the process of fulfilling orders. Each item is carefully removed from the freight palette, placed in a secure cardboard box (to preserve the integrity of the superb quality hardback book), addressed and shipped with Australia Post, with whom we are a Bulk Mail Partner.

Supporting 5 Charities

Proceeds from Our Bali Your Bali goes towards the following charities:

• Bali Children’s Foundation: lifting people out of poverty through education
• East Bali poverty project: building communities from the ground up
• Scholars of Sustenance: putting food in millions of mouths
• Friends of the National Parks Foundation: protecting flora and fauna and providing jobs for countless communities.
• Wali Wise by R.O.L.E Foundation: empowering marginalised women by providing skills and education to develop sustainable communities.

Helping to facilitate this project's distribution is a small thing to help people who are starving. The fact that we have close personal Balinese friends who we have known for over ten years makes it all the more important that we help.

My family and I have been doing a few things outside of this project to assist the people of Bali but to be part of this wonderful, kind initiative is an honour for us.