Health-minded entrepreneurs fill gap in market for vegan, raw food snacks

After Calista Goh had surgery to remove a 6.5cm-long benign tumour on her intestinal wall in 2008, she found that she could hardly stomach any food.

A law school freshman at the University of Bristol at the time, she stumbled onto London's first raw vegan restaurant, Saf. Her meal there was the first after surgery that didn't bring pain, bloating or diarrhoea.

"The food was so good, I didn't think about meat," says Goh, 29, a Singapore native who admits to eating everything and anything in the past.

So inspired was she by her new plant-based diet that she went on to take raw vegan food preparation courses and worked at vegan cafes.

Armed with a law degree, at the end of 2011 she moved to Hong Kong to join her then-boyfriend. But she found it difficult to stick to her diet due to the lack of healthy options here. In forums online, she read of similar challenges others were facing.

Goh decided to ditch her law career and start her own raw vegan health food company, Anything But Salads. "Working as a lawyer would pay well, but after having my health issues, I realised that money wasn't everything," she says.

Initially offering food catering and delivery meals, the company last August moved into snack manufacturing. All the products are made by Goh in a small industrial kitchen at Shek Mun. Demand has been "incredibly good", she says, with bestsellers being the Cheesy Kale Crisps and Sicilian Pizza Flax Crackers.