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How climate change and overfishing drove this Hong Kong property manager to launch a cell-grown seafood business
- Learning how pollution and overfishing are damaging marine ecosystems prompted architect Carrie Chan to launch Avant Meats
- Having completed proof-of-concept for its lab-grown fish, the start-up is now setting up a pilot production facility in Singapore
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For Carrie Chan Kai-yi, a Hong Kong architect-turned alternative protein entrepreneur, setting up a business in the uncharted and commercially unproven world of lab-grown seafood was a calling she could not resist.
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The more she learned about the ways climate change and pollution are damaging marine ecosystems and how the nascent business of using stem cells to grow meat was gaining traction in Western markets, the more convinced she was about setting up such a venture in Asia.
It was enough to make her quit her job in property project management and commit full-time to launching Avant Meats back in 2019.
“The current overfishing and problematic fish farming situation is a kind of ‘boiling frog’ syndrome,” said Chan, who became a vegan for environmental reasons seven years ago. “While we will not suddenly have no seafood to eat, we are finding it increasingly difficult to catch quality seafood due to overfishing.
“We are also seeing reports of ocean temperature rise, acidification and plastic pollution, all of which affect how much fish can be grown and how safe they are to consume. That’s why we chose to focus on the cell-grown seafood business.”
Chan, Avant Meat’s CEO, co-founded the company with chief science officer Mario Chin, a biomedical scientist and expert in medical genetics. They set up the start-up’s first laboratory in Hong Kong Science and Technology Park to conduct research and development in 2019.
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