Asian comfort food next for plant-based meat entrepreneur who is putting his beliefs into practice
- Hong Kong-born entrepreneur Blair Crichton co-founded Asia’s first whole-plant-based meat company, Karana in Singapore. It aligns with my moral views, he says
- It turns jackfruit into minced and shredded ‘pork’, and aims to launch Asian convenience foods targeted at flexitarians and health-conscious Chinese consumers
Blair Crichton was four years old when his parents helped him understand the connection between the meat on his plate and the animals it was derived from. Horrified, he put down his fork and refused to eat meat.
That was 31 years ago, and today the Hong Kong-born banker turned entrepreneur is co-founder of Asia’s first whole-plant meat company, Karana.
From junior school at Kellett School, he went to boarding school in Australia, where it was more challenging to not eat meat. He resumed his vegetarian diet at Durham University in the UK where he did an undergraduate degree in politics, philosophy and economics and wrote a paper on the moral value of animals.
After graduation, he joined the international management programme of HSBC, a global bank, which took him to Shanghai, back to Hong Kong and then to the United States. In 2016, after six years with HSBC, he turned his thoughts to business school. At about this time he saw the documentary Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret, which explores the impact of animal agriculture on the environment.
“I’ve always been very environmentally focused, thinking about climate impact, and it became clear to me that even dairy and eggs have a large climate impact. That pushed me to go vegan,” says Crichton.