There can't be too many people who can say it was actor Tobey Maguire who inspired them to open a business. But the vegan actor's liking for the cooking of vegetarian chef Suzy Spoon was the catalyst for her opening a vegetarian butcher shop.

Spoon has been cooking vegetarian and vegan food for more than 20 years and was Maguire's personal chef when he was recently in Australia filming The Great Gatsby . After Maguire said he preferred her products to other well-known brands, Spoon was inspired to start Spoon's Vegetarian Butcher, with co-founder Chris Moses, who looks after the financial and operations side of the business.

Suzy Spoon opened Australia's only vegetarian butcher in September.

“I decided that there would be a lot of people cooking for Tobey so if he really liked my food then that meant other people would like my products as well,” the Sydney chef says.

“Prior to the shop I sold my products at a market in Marrickville but we stopped doing that in January to focus on the store.”