In the past decade, Hong Kong has seen a growing trend in public demand for organic and locally sourced vegetables. The local wholesale vegetable industry is supported by the Vegetable Marketing Organization (VMO), a non-profit, semi-government organisation, established in 1946. I met with Kenneth Law, Marketing Manager at the VMO, our Member for the past two years, to learn more about their story, vision, and sustainability initiatives.

 

Release of the Blueprint for the Sustainable Development of Agriculture and Fisheries

VMO’s three golden aims!

 

Kenneth tells me about the three golden aims of VMO. Foremost is their desire to provide local farmers a platform to market their produce, and ensure that Hong Kongers have a stable vegetable supply, while continually facilitating the sustainable development of Hong Kong’s agricultural industry. For VMO, sustainability means promoting local produce to different sectors, adapting their service mode to match the market needs, upgrading agri-products, and branding Hong Kong’s grown products with the industry’s different shareholders. 

 

Kenneth speaking at one of our Meetups around Plant-Forward Diets

From its inception after the war-effort era to during the pandemic till now, VMO has consistently done its utmost to achieve its missions and vision, by managing and ensuring an efficient marketing system and safe supply of the wholesale vegetable market for public consumption. But they do not stop here. 

With sustainable procurement as the basis of their operations, Kenneth emphasises that VMO sources the freshest vegetables from conventional but also organic, and hydroponic farms as well as encouraging clients to adopt the habit of buying locally. 

Growing public interest!

Since joining VMO 20 years ago, Kenneth notes that in the past decade, the public is now leaning towards organic and locally grown vegetables. Despite a dip since COVID-19 and rising global inflation, he is confident that a resurgence in public interest for organic vegetables is inevitable with the world embracing sustainability more than ever. 

 

AFCD Staff Club Food Tasting and Pre-Order Sale before Chinese New Year

VMO participates in different exhibitions and hosts their signatory annual event, the FarmFest, in collaboration with the Fish Marketing Organization to increase local awareness. The latter helps them engage thousands of Hong Kongers while providing an incredible opportunity for local farmers and vegetable enthusiasts right before the festive season. Collaborating with corporate clients and hosting small food-tasting and pre-order service exhibitions, VMO creates market demand and further complies with the UN SDGs and ESG concepts.

FarmFest 2024 opens at Fa Hui Park in Mong Kok

Diversifying market reach!

At the market level, Kenneth mentions diversifying and expanding the product range reminds Hong Kongers of premium local products helping local farmers improve their revenue. These items include local pork and eggs, and cooked items with local ingredients, like egg rolls and even turnip cakes for the Chinese New Year! As local farmers face strict competition with the Mainland’s cheaper vegetables and high-end imports, he reiterates public support is crucial.

 

FoodSmart Conference and Expo for the Food and Beverage Trade 2023 – Towards Carbon Neutrality Cum EcoPark Exhibition

 

Collaboration is key!

In the long run, Kenneth pushes for collaboration, promising that VMO will continuously serve as a hub between producers, consumers, and different stakeholders. Holding community effort in high regard, he says, “VMO could never have done this alone”, and referred to the two-year-long association with Future Green. 

The Future Green on a field trip to VMO

 

In Kenneth’s words, “By joining Future Green, we believe we can approach the right audiences who believe sustainability is the right direction to move on. There are so many stories to share and we can do this together to make some positive impact to change the world in the near future.”

Contact Kenneth to up your supply of Hong Kong and regionally grown veggies.

 

 

 

 

Are you curious about your food’s impact?

The Future Green team with the International Culinary Institute’s students and staff at the Sustainable Gastronomy Forum held on the 2nd of February 2024.

Sustainability is not a far-fetched idea, instead, it is more achievable than you think! We at Future Green believe that this is possible. Everyone has the power to shift towards a sustainable future, and it starts with our youth. We kicked off our February by delivering an exciting Sustainability 101 training workshop for the International Culinary Institute’s Sustainable Gastronomy Forum. It was a bright, sunny morning, and the mood here at ICI was alike! 

The future of Hong Kong’s culinary scene did a quick mood check-in before we began our two-hour-long workshop, consisting of an informative training session followed by an engaging Ideation Matrix activity – our classic! Warming up for the productive morning, the students and staff at ICI shared their thoughts on what food sustainability means to them. One of them highlighted a root problem area, and a preventable one, in food sustainability: portion control. Incredible insight! Portion control is one of the most effective strategies to combat the numerous issues the food sector faces and a solution to one of our workshop’s categories: food loss and food waste.

Quick mood check ahead of the workshop!

Training for solutions!

What food sustainability meant to the ICI community before the Sustainability Training 101 workshop

For this very workshop, we tailored Future Green’s framework to ICI’s more pressing concerns in food sustainability. We focused on five of our fifteen categories, including food loss and food waste, and plant-forward and less and better meat (by the way, the latter is this month’s Future Green’s focus and topic for our upcoming Members Monthly Meetup).  

Heidi conducting the Sustainability Training 101 workshop!

As part of our training, we delved deeper into why the category “plant-forward and less and better meat” is the path to be on. Did you know that 80% of the carbon footprint for most foods comes from land use and land use change? The community at ICI was surprised to find that out, alongside that Hong Kong is one of the largest consumers of meat in the world. That’s alarming. Whilst meat is a great source of protein, its production has a huge carbon footprint. One of the teachers at ICI explained why beef has one of the highest carbon footprints than any other food. Do not worry, there is a growing number of delicious, healthier plant-forward protein and meat alternatives that you can opt. Just like Heidi, the founder and CEO of Future Green, puts it as “a win-win situation”. A win for health, a win for the environment! What’s better than that?

 

Learning is good… Doing is better!

One of the four groups ideating on our tailored ideation matrix for ICI’s Sustainability Training 101 workshop!

What is training without a productive outcome? After the informative training, the workshop participants got to ideating and roadmapping a possible food sustainability initiative! With the ICI’s community locked in on the five target areas, exciting ideas started pouring in and filling the charts with post-it notes. 

For the many amazing ideas that emerged from the workshop, we later charted them by the impact they bring and the effort they require. Towards the end of our workshop, the participants in four groups, sorted the more than 50 ideas they had come up with into practical solutions that are feasible to follow through!

So many takeaway ideas, not boxes! 

At the end of our workshop, the students at the ICI headed out with many, innovative takeaway ideas and not boxes! Just our aim for any workshop!

Students can now take their 2×2 map to their decision makers and show off their team aligned ideas to kick off conversations and get the buy-in they need for change to happen!

Heidi with ICI teachers Raymond and Wallace

The top four key takeaways from our innovative workshop provided feasible solutions for the five focused areas, such as creating portion controlled plastic models (similar to what you see in Japan) at the point of purchase to address one of food waste’s root problems (over ordering) which we highlighted earlier on in the morning. One of the groups came up with an approach to phasing out single-use plastics by collaborating with retailers and businesses. The participants further explained how incentivising plant-forward diets on a designated “Green Monday”, and starting a social media campaign to purchase only grown seafood (rather than spawning season seafood) would encourage sustainable diets and procurement. Impressive!

Thank you everyone at the ICI for spending their morning with us localising and resolving their food sustainability challenges! 

–

Ready to convert your challenges into growth? Involve us for a productive, tailored workshop by clicking below!

https://futuregreen.global/contact-us/ 

Interested in learning more about “Plant-forward and Less and Better Meat” and more food sustainability topics? 

Join us for our upcoming Member’s Monthly meetup on 20th February at the Swire Archive Centre! 

https://futuregreen.global/become-a-member/ 

Connect with Us:

• Join our Skool Community
• Future Green Website
• Follow us on LinkedIn
• Subscribe to our Newsletter 

Contact Us: Got questions or ideas? Email us at hello@futuregreen.global.

Together, we’re not just talking about a sustainable future; we’re building it. Let’s make every meal a story worth telling.

Stay green, stay inspired.

Future Green Team

 

The Future Green team with Participants from the BritCham Committee Chair

With the beautiful view of Central greeting us at the meeting room in The Executive Centre at AIA, we were energetic and excited to run our ‘Innovation Workshop’ for The British Chamber of Commerce (BritCham) where we met for deliberation on our workshop question to solve: How might we work more innovatively together, leveraging collective action, and plan for an exciting 2024?

🎙️Step 1: Context Setting with Expert Interviews

We jumped straight into doing an ‘Expert Interview’ , with BritCham Executive Director Paul McComb, sharing his challenges for the coming year. Expert interviews serve as a method for the team to take notes, in the form of questions, i.e. turning challenges into “How Might Wes”.

Paul and Jeremy sharing their challenges during the Expert Interview

⛵Step 2: Sailboat exercise: Identifying positive

With the end of the Expert Interview, we started our popular Lightning Decision Jam. This part of the workshop allows teams to save time and collaborate efficiently. We absolutely love this and it is the perfect way to solve problems fast!

A personal favourite of mine, a simple tool to identify wins and challenges, it serves as an excellent starting point for establishing a clear vision of the team’s desired end-goal.

Together, Alone. Participants were first asked to silently write out (this cuts out noisy discussion) on sticky notes the things that are working well, then take turns sharing them. It is always great to start on a positive note and identify and appreciate what is already being done by different teams!

🚧Step 3: Sailboat exercise: Identifying the blockers (challenges)

For the challenges participants were asked again to write in silence on sticky notes. With everyone scribbling away it became clear each team member had a lot to get off their chest. Challenges that arose included issues around procedures and capacity.

Participants concentrating hard!

🏆Step 4: Categorise: Sorting our Way to Success!

A top exercise for problem-framing, clustering the challenges sets the stage to structure and present a clear overview of the prevalent issues. We then gave the participants red dots to vote on what they think are the biggest issues to work on. A lot of discussions came about during this exercise and we loved that! The enthusiasm and ideas bouncing off the walls was just fantastic. In the end, three most voted challenges were identified for ideation and solution creation.

Intense discussions and thoughts at play whilst categorising

🤔Step 5: Solutions

10 for 10. With the challenges reframed as questions, participants were asked to brainstorm solutions silently for the top-voted “How Might Wes” writing as many solutions as possible in 10 minutes. It was great to see participants writing down all of their ideas – we could feel the ideas were practically buzzing through their heads. Solutions were voted on to prepare us for prioritisation.

📊Step 6: Prioritisation

Last but not least, Action Board the effort and impact matrix. A straightforward yet handy 2×2 scale to figure out which solutions to tackle first and which ones can wait. We debated where to place these ideas on the scale.

The entire team ideating

🎬And… that’s a wrap!

A lot was done in 1.5 hours and participants left with a more concrete idea on how to tackle pesky issues by turning problems into solutions and landed on what to tackle first and which to leave for a longer term project. It’s great to see what (sometimes) begins with scepticism turn into a useful and actionable outcome.

It was an absolute blast to have run this innovation workshop to solve for a BritCham Committee Chairs Group challenge, and we look forward to delivering more amazing ones in the future!

Also looking to align your teams and tackle challenges in a highly structured and time-efficient way? Reach out to us today: hello@futuregreen.global

 

Future Green team ready for the RBHK event! Woo, we are on the Main Stage this year.

What an honour it was for our CEO & Founder, Heidi Yu Spurrell, to curate and moderate a Future Green Panel Talk at this year’s RBHK show Main Stage, where we gathered some of our Members to highlight their environmentally conscious food businesses. Our lovely panellists included, Sandy Keung from ‘Table by Sandy Keung’, Nobin John from ‘Orka’, Samanatha de Mello from Hyatt Hong Kong’ and Pippo Au from ‘Maxims’.

It was such a lively and vibrant experience that aimed to offer the industry an overview of sustainable foodservice challenges through a seminar and panel discussion. What’s more, we were delighted to have been given the opportunity to present on the Main Stage – this really does show how sustainability is moving from a niche topic, into the mainstream. 

Latest Trends in Food Sustainability

Before bringing in our panellists, Heidi started off with a presentation on the food system and  ‘top 10 global food sustainability trends in 2023’ – our 20+ audience remained more than engaged.

With high emphasis on the trends of  ‘antimicrobial resistance’ and ‘packaging innovation and reduction’, our audience picked up on a lot of insights. The audience was particularly shocked seeing the data that highlighted Hong Kong’s per capita meat consumption which is rising rapidly, placing it among the countries with the fastest growth rate. Many phones went up in the air as the audience started taking photos of the slide. 

 

Other insightful questions were asked and of particular interest came one revolving around how much data is out there showing the proportion of products that is made up of ingredients that are not nutritionally beneficial. What an intellectual bunch with a progressive mind-set!

Great turnout!

Heidi delivering the presentation

Panel Talk & Discussion 

 

Then it was time for the panel talk! The discussion revolved around ‘How to Build a Food Industry that is Good for People and Planet’ with the objective being to ‘Share a local and regional perspective on how to tackle food sustainability issues in your business’. 

Phew – this may sound like a mouthful but it was such a good discussion. By having a mixture of panellists from different sized businesses within the F&B industry (from independent restaurants to large chains and hotels), it was such a great way to hear insights from different perspectives. 

From Sandy’s knowledge on local & seasonal ingredients in Hong Kong, Samantha’s honest insights on how more education is needed within the hotel industry to understand sustainability, Nobin’s perspective on how the community can make a difference and that focusing on wellness can get us far on our journey to Pippo’s business strategy in implementing a top-down approach to prepare the company for the government regulation on plastic & waste management, the audience heard an array of answers and wisdom.

Perhaps the common theme that was discussed among all four panellists was the journey of sustainability and how it should be your own and start somewhere, not worrying about what others are doing. Despite the hiccups and mistakes you may make along the way, if you’re focusing on your well-being, as Nobin said, you’re making a massive impact on sustainability. 

To put it in perspective, as Sandy said, there may be 10 million things that you can do to become more sustainable, but focus on 3 things first then move along the next 3. It’s all about balance!

Finally, Heidi’s last question to all was about the misconceptions in sustainability. An interesting misconception that received a lot of nodding from the audience came from the misconception that sustainability has to be ‘expensive’. Pippo discussed how sustainability presents a business opportunity, highlighting that sustainable branding can be affordable and achievable by aligning teams around protocols and policies.

Panel discussion taking place!

Ending with a win!

As the panel talk drew to a close, we quickly wrapped things up with our raffle prize where the winner (Charles Kaderabek from Renaissance Hotel) won a voucher to Sandy Keung’s restaurant, Table’. With the winner announced and a loud ‘whoop’ from the winner himself, we ended the event on a high! With networking taking place right after with lots of positive feedback from the audience, it was truly an amazing way to end the day. 

Our 3  key takeaways:

• Sustainability is a continuous journey. 
  • It’s your own journey and whatever steps you take, you are already making a difference. 
• Collaboration and education are crucial.
  •  As recognised by all panellists, the panellists acknowledged that sustainability is not achievable alone and requires collective efforts.
• Mind-set shifts and embracing sustainability as a business opportunity. 
  • Our panellists encourage everyone to view sustainability as an opportunity rather than a burden.

 

Panel discussion taking place!

 

 

Heidi presenting to a group of enthusiastic listeners (both remote and in-person!)

The Future Green team was so excited to enter Moët Hennessy Diageo Hong Kong (MHD) office space last week in Quarry Bay to conduct our Lunch & Learn workshop. We designed and delivered an innovation workshop, that was hybrid for both MHD Hong Kong & Macau offices, to surface sustainability challenges both at the office and with accounts. It was insightful to host team functions, from sales and marketing to HR, as it brought together a diverse group of perspectives for the purpose of exchanging ideas and getting inspired.

As our 23 participants gathered into the meeting room with their plates full of delicious food, they looked eager and excited to learn for the hour. Indeed, there is no better way to attend a workshop than whilst eating food! 

Looking into sustainability

Off we start with Heidi giving a high level overview of food systems challenges.  We reminded participants of the link between the food system, alcohol production and climate change, which then in turn led to a discussion around  what a ‘green account’ looks like, and how we recognise one.

Heidi presenting to a group of enthusiastic listeners (both remote and in-person!)

We love sharing case studies of best practice.

Sustainability Innovation Workshop

Now comes the fun part – How to identify the wins and challenges in their company, and align on what to focus on. 

It was amazing to see everyone scribbling down on their post-it notes with such concentration! It became clear that regulating plastic waste and managing energy efficiency in the way of reusing cups and auto light-off systems were a great success. Over in the Macau office, management around paper waste (zero to little printing taking place) was a top win. 

In terms of challenges, for the Hong Kong Office,  the issue surrounding the lack of recycling schemes for glass bottles in the city and the need for gifting packaging was a big concern. This also resonated similarly with the Macau team.

Participants writing down their challenges on the post-it notes

Insights!

Participants loved this part of the exercise – enthusiastic chattering and idea exchanging ensued. After all three teams voted  on the most pressing issues to work on, it was evident that  tackling gifting packaging was top of mind. Another big topic for the Macau office was the need to tackle and cut out single-use plastic.

This was a highly valuable L&L 

• Insights into the top three (team aligned) issues each team faced regarding sustainability initiatives were surfaced
• This information highlighted the areas that required attention or resolution based on the teams’ concerns or priorities.
• Every participant had a sense of ownership of the challenges put forward.

Outcomes

This Lunch and Learn workshop really did fly by in a blink of an eye! With this approach, we made a point to highlight the benefits of innovation workshopping. In addition to the main objective of generating interest in sustainability among the staff, we emphasised the opportunity to test a new and efficient way to collaborate and align on issues. We love facilitating this type of workshop and can’t wait to be able to deliver more in the future!

Want to run a cross team Lunch and Learn with our Innovative Sustainability Workshop? Get in touch today: hello@futuregreen.global

Lovely group photo with the Future Green team and Link REIT employees 

So fun to be returning to LINK Sustainability Lab, at one Link REIT’s  flagship malls in Lok Fu last week.  We designed and delivered our signature Food Sustainability Scoping Workshop to introduce this complex topic to LINK employees. It was insightful to host employees from different departments of the company, such as Asset Management, Sustainability, and Corporate Affairs, as it brought together a diverse group of individuals for the purpose of exchanging ideas and getting inspired.

With the open space, participants were greeted upon entering the Lab to enthusiastic chatter of children in the background, participating in the interactive games that we helped to do research for back in October 2022. As participants mingled and got themselves in place, a quick introduction round helped us settle in. Indeed, for a large developer like Link REIT, often employees don’t know of one another – this was a great opportunity to facilitate some team synergy!

The Chosen Six Topics

With Heidi kickstarting this workshop, participants were introduced to the complexity of food sustainability and the importance of holistic thinking – or what we call systems thinking. We introduced our 3 pillar framework  (that fully aligns with the UN SGDs), and it’s of no surprise that at first glance participants felt it to be incredibly daunting. With 15 focus areas embedded into this framework, it wasn’t possible  to cover all of them within our speedy 1.5 hour workshop. Instead we gave control to our audience and had them vote on 6 areas that they would like to learn more about. Each given 3 red dot stickers, they all cast their votes!

 Guests casting their votes

 The top 6 voted areas

The 6 top voted areas were revealed: Embrace Biodiversity, Support Animal Welfare, Reduce Food Loss & Waste, Uphold Fair Labour, Ensure Access to Nutritious Diets and Maintain Food Safety.  Wow! 3 out of 6 of the areas voted for fell under the ‘society’ pillar- it showed us people are wanting to learn more about supporting society and not shying away from this tricky space (as opposed to environmental challenges which typically get more interest in our experience).

Delving Into The Course

With 6 areas identified, Heidi dived into the top voted topics and for the next 25 minutes, gave a high level, basic but essential overview on each. It was great to see people so engaged and nodding along. 

Possibly, the area that saw the most interest was  ‘Ensure Access to Nutritious Diets’. Taking in the staggering statistics, such as 500 million Asians are considered overweight/obese, it’s no wonder Heidi had them hooked and focused on how we can access better food for our health. 

As all six areas were addressed, Q&As began and what a discussion it was! Keilem Ng (General Manager from the Sustainability Team) started off with a question on ‘support animal welfare’, asking ‘I’m not sure if this topic resonates as much with people in Asia as it does in the West, but what’s your opinion and experience on this Heidi?’.  A great question, Heidi’s answers focused on optimism and how education is key to breaking down barriers and to ‘pilot’ ideas and give it a go, specifically looking at IKEA’s example of ‘Better Chicken’. 

Other questions and discussions revolved around wanting more plant-based options in local restaurants, understanding how to better track supply chains, as well as seeing the rise of alternatives like ‘beyond meat’ in Hong Kong.

 Kicking off with the six top voted areas 

Let’s Begin The Workshop!

Splitting and mixing up the departments into two groups, we ran our super fun version of the Lighting Decision Jam. Our workshop highlighted the crucial role facilitation plays in driving success for teams as well as the secrets to unlocking true team synergy.

First up was the sailboat exercise. A simple tool to identify wins and challenges, it’s a nice stepping stone for defining a vision of where they want to go. With everyone concentrating hard and scribbling down their ideas on wins and challenges it became clear that both groups identified their surplus food wastage/ donation schemes as a great success. Challenges that arose from both groups looked into the culture and government policies on sustainability in Hong Kong.

Sailboat activity

By identifying the challenges, the next step was to categorise them. The best exercise for problem-framing, clustering the challenges was a helpful way to provide a clear and organised overview of prevalent issues. It’s clear that as both groups categorised their challenges, clarity started forming as the messiness of the sailboat points became much more organised and understandable. 

From here, we identified the two most voted challenges. We generated the ‘How Might We’ (HMW) questions to address the identified issues rather than just seeing them as obstacles. 

Insights

It was interesting to see two different insights from both groups: Group 1 prioritised internal business challenges (e.g. how might we leverage our existing resources?) whilst Group 2 focused on how to influence customers (e.g. how might we enable individuals to believe in their actions and willingness to change habits?).

All fun and laughter whilst categorising!

That’s a Speedy Wrap Up!

Phew! Was that a lot to digest in 1.5 hours? Perhaps, but did they enjoy it? Absolutely! Feedback was top notch! 

Having identified and pinpointed what challenges need to be explored, everyone took home exciting (and some new) ideas to tackle. Teams were pleasantly surprised to see what others had in mind in terms of ideas to action.

We thoroughly enjoyed our workshop for Link REIT employees and look forward to delivering more fun training and workshops in the future!

Do you qualify for a complimentary scoping workshop? Get in touch today: hello@futuregreen.global