Executive Luncheon: Future of Food Sustainability in China

On May 17, 2019, Collective Responsibility (CR) brought together 20 executives together to learn about the work of David Yeung, Founder of Green Common, and Elaine Siu, APAC Managing Director of the Good Food Institute, to learn about the Future of Food Sustainability in China.

To open the event, Richard Brubaker, founder of Collective Responsibility, provided some insights into the research and challenges that we have seen at The Collective.  That as urban populations expand, the challenge of feeding China’s urban consumers will grow exponentially, and that their demand will create significant stress on resources.

Following Richard’s remarks, Elaine Siu shared the work of the Good Food Institute (GFI)  to help accelerate growth of plant-based and cell-based proteins by working with scientists, policymakers, corporate , investors, and entrepreneurs  to improve the efficiency of production in food industry.

To date, GFI has invested 3 million dollars in 15 projects related cells research worldwide, one in China, and is seeking to entrepreneurs get into alternatives industries by helping them connecting with investors, whom they are also educating.

After Elaine, David Yeung, Founder & CEO of Green Monday & Green Common, spoke about his concern for how a population of 10 billion people would be sustained, and how this has catalyzed him as he builds the plant-based movement.

Something he says got a lot easier with the Beyond Meat IPO.

To move the needle forward, David has focused on building a platform that is as engaging to as many people as possible, while at the same time looking for specific “APPs” that he can plug into his platform.

It is a process that started with a single retail store for years ago, which is now 9, in Hong Kong, but is now spreading around Asia (Singapore, Thailand, Philippines, and China), and while was an early investor in Beyond Meat, and its APAC representative, he has also recently launched is own planted-based meat, “OMN!PORK”.

For David, the planted-based products are as an IOS platform for the food industry, providing a fundamental step in future of food production for other players to build on top of.

To help bring more tangibility to the discussion, participants were treated to a full vegan meal of Beyond Meat, OMN!PORK, and Strictly cookies.

There was a quantity of discussion during Q&A section, the ones that were of greatest importance for all participants was supervision and apply on their business action in future food industry.

After the event, CR also shared their Shanghai Food Waste Management Report and China Informal Waste Report to the participants for further reference and discussion. We believe all the participants enjoyed the session and get insightful ideas from the luncheon.

As a followup to this spectacular event, we will be arranging a discussion on China’s Sustainable Consumers.

Please feel free to send an email to [email protected]  if you have any ideas/questions to share or if you want to participate the next round’s event. We look forward to seeing you all!

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