Chef Shane Osborn is driving Hong Kong’s arm of Food Made Good with the aim of making the food industry more sustainable – with results that include reducing the amount of plastic used, to increasing the variety of vegan options available in the city
Last December, restaurateur and chef Shane Osborn became president of the Hong Kong arm of Food Made Good, the world's largest sustainable programme for the food industry which originated in the UK 10 years ago.
Osborn's aim is to get Hong Kong's food industry on board with plant-based eating and reducing waste. "It's my job to promote the sustainable initiative and to get people on board to talk to each other, sharing ideas on what steps they can take to make their business more sustainable within their restaurants and the whole food service industry," says Osborn.
"We're talking to suppliers about reducing the amount of plastic they use. Meat will be wrapped in a vacuum packed sealed bag and then they'll deliver that wrapped in another plastic bag inside a box, that's got plastic. We are talking to suppliers and saying we don't need to have that level of plastic and we are sharing the knowledge with our contemporaries within the industry."
Hong Kong restaurants that have already joined Food Made Good are Alibi, Amber, Arcane, Beef & Liberty, Cafe Too, Classified, Cornerstone, Fineprint, Kind Kitchen, Mana!, Nectar, Petrus, PizzaExpress, SaladStop!, Spicebox Organics and Treehouse.
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Osborn leads by example, involving his staff to grow their own herbs and vegetables on the restaurant's patio to reduce carbon footprint and help them appreciate the true value of food and how long it takes to cultivate. And at his casual eatery Cornerstone he has introduced a filtration system for still or sparkling water.
Another aim is to influence diners to eat meals each week that are sustainable, or plant-based. For two of the six days his staff eats at the restaurant, he makes one day vegetarian and the other vegan dishes for them.
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"Eating vegan food is not supposed to be something that is described as out of the ordinary or peculiar. Eating a plate of vegetables is normal," says Osborn. "That's the initiative that we're taking just to set an example to our staff and hopefully that will have ripple effects with our customer base and our suppliers and once people understand what we're doing, hopefully they'll take the initiative and do the same."
Restaurants have taken the initiative in recent years, and more tasty plant-based options are easier to find. "I think some of the best cuisines for vegan food are Indian or Vietnamese and even Thai," says Osborn. Something like dal made with tomatoes, cumin and spices with coconut milk inside is easy to make and it's what I cook for my family quite regularly."
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But to impress guests at home, how easy is it to make a tasty vegan dish that looks as good as it tastes? Arcane's chef de cuisine Michael Smith makes butternut squash wrapped in white daikon that is as easy to make and as it looks impressive. "It is a cold dish in terms of plating," says Smith, "We just blanch the daikon which is a quick in and out of hot water, and roast the butternut squash."
The roasted butternut squash is wrapped in white daikon and served with edamame, wild sweet soy and balsamic dressing, which is in a ratio of 4 to 1 vinegar to oil.
When dressing the plate, put a few drops of sweet soy and balsamic dressing on the layer of daikon. Season with pink Tasmanian pepperberry salt. Then put a spoonful of the roasted butternut squash on each piece of daikon and top that with another layer of white diakon. Dress the dish with edamame and diced purple and red Japanese radish.
Video By: Jeff Chen
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