WHEN Bernie Furness' blood pressure hit the dangerously high level of 220 over 180, he realised he needed to slow down.

"I never go to the doctor - my blood pressure is normally 130 over 85 - but I was standing there cooking when I felt ill," says the chef.

"So I went straight to the doctor and she said I should immediately go to hospital or bed because the threat of stroke was enormous.

"I told her I couldn't because I had pies in the oven. I couldn't just open and close the shop because I was feeling off."

After eight months of tests and a re-evaluation of his life and business, Bernie and his wife, Kathy, have now cranked down their highly successful Red Hill Kitchen to enjoy life and their children, Jack, 2, and Poppy, 6.

For the past three years the couple have made and sold gourmet foods, pies, tarts, prepared meals, preserves, biscuits and a range of other goodies from their Red Hill cottage on the Mornington Peninsula, using local, organic products.

But, at the beginning of this year, following the health scare, they decided to go wholesale.

"We just realised we couldn't keep this up for the long term," says Bernie.

"Generally in this industry if you're my age you're in management or a raging alcoholic.

"We were at that point where we could have made a commercial shop, tripled the staff, doubled the equipment but then we realised that wasn't what we came here to do.

"We would have just been going back to what we'd left behind."

What they'd left behind was a string of successful - but high-maintenance - restaurants and cafes.

Frankston-born Bernie trained in French cooking in the 1970s at Le Gavroche in Melbourne and went on to start his own restaurant, The Village, in Mt Beauty.

In the '80s, he headed up to Brisbane, where he met Kathy, and owned several restaurants before they decided to head south again to the Mornington Peninsula for a seachange and Red Hill Kitchen.

"A home-based business seemed a fairly easy way to keep in the food game, to keep control, because we'd only sell what we made," says Bernie.

However, the problem with being a sought-after chef is having your product run off the shelf.

"It just grew beyond all expectations. I was working 5am to 5pm and at first we opened three days a week but it grew to five," he says.

"You can't just open your doors and sell what you want to sell, you need to have a range of products in order to maximise each sale.

"Then you get to the point you're outlaying more in wages than what is coming in so you're not getting extra return for the extra work."

Bernie says once they'd decided to slow down, they needed to figure their formula: "we could go wholesale, retail, cater, or go to markets."

They chose wholesale and now offer homemade preserves, chutneys and jams to shops around the peninsula.

'"My passion and drive used to be my profession but now it's my family.

"I don't want to make more, I want to make better."