Meet The Food Entrepreneurs And Artists Shaking Things Up
Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia
This year’s list features F&B entrepreneurs keeping health and sustainability in mind, and highlights daring artists exploring gender identity and roles through their work.
In grad school, Cian Dawson craved ice cream but knew it wasn’t the healthy option. So she and boyfriend Courtney Brown, 30, bought an A$99 ($64) ice cream maker and experimented with protein powders until they made desserts that didn’t taste like a nutritional supplement. The couple started selling Gym Bod ice cream brand from a food truck, and in 2022 won an A$2 million order with Coles supermarket chain, which was doubled a year later. The ice cream is marketed as high protein, “ultra low sugar” products, but they do contain non-sugar sweeteners such as Xylitol. The company now sells nine flavors, including peanut butter salted caramel and white chocolate raspberry ripple, for about A$10 a pint in more than 1,000 stores across Australia and New Zealand, and exports to Kuwait and the UAE.
Dawson is one of the entrepreneurs on this year’s Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia: The Arts list who are disrupting the food and beverage industry. They are creating healthier and more sustainable options for everyday treats.
Forbes Asia
“When I look at the kind of hours and the sacrifices that Courtney and I have been making throughout our 20s,” Dawson recalls in a video call from Brisbane, “I’m kind of like, this is what you have to do if you want to grow.” The five-year struggle inspired the couple to start their own “ice cream accelerator” within Rocket Creations, their Brisbane-based company. The couple uses extra space in its 750-square-meter factory to help other aspiring dessert makers bring ideas to market. According to Dawson, that gives them practice at running a bigger operation. Beyond the local market, the company is studying how to distribute and eventually manufacture in the U.K. and the U.S.
Sustainability Takes Priority
Other F&B entrepreneurs have realized the impact our daily sweet treats have on the environment and society, and are trying to find sustainable alternatives and methods to produce them.
In 2022, former neuroscience major Jake Berber cofounded Prefer, a Singapore-based startup that turns food waste into bean-free, ground coffee. Prefer uses fermentation technology to replicate natural flavors for its bean-free coffee, which is now available in 14 outlets in Singapore. Berber plans to expand to other flavors threatened by climate change such as cacao, vanilla and hazelnut.
Jake Berber, cofounder of Prefer.
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Another entrepreneur – this time taking animal welfare into consideration – is India-born Kajol Sethia, whose journey to veganism started while studying engineering in Singapore. Upon returning to Nepal, she launched Vegan Dairy Nepal in 2018, producing vegan products such as milk, cheese, yoghurt, butter and health supplements. For her work in advocating a cruelty-free lifestyle, Sethia received the Outstanding Activist Award 2019 from PETA Asia.
In New Zealand, former pastry chef Thomas Netana Wright launched Ao Cacao, an Auckland-based indigenous chocolate maker, in 2021. Its products use local ingredients and flavors including a crunchy toffee that uses Manuka honeycomb and a dark chocolate bar made with olive oil from New Zealand’s Northland region. Netana Wright, who is of Māori descent, says he works directly with Pacific cacao farmers and other ethical suppliers.
Artists breaking taboos
Through their bold work across disciplines, a number of artists on the list chose to challenge conceptions related to gender roles in their communities.
Pakistani artist Bushra Sultan.
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Bushra Sultan is a Pakistani filmmaker, creative director and production designer whose work addresses her country’s constraints on women. Her most notable work is in fashion and beauty. A campaign for Demesne Couture called ‘Guria’ depicted two opulently dressed women being controlled like puppets by giant hands pulling strings, a comment on the country’s wedding industry and the demands made on brides. Sultan is also known for her audacious ‘Chimera’ campaign featuring headless women.
In Bangladesh, multidisciplinary artist Anusha Alamgir participated in the 18th International Architecture Exhibition at the 2023 Venice Biennale with a film called ‘Porda – which means ‘veil’ in Bangla – addressing Muslim veiling practices. Alamgir’s artistic practices apply architectural concepts to sculpture, painting, photography and performance, while also exploring contemporary issues in Bangladesh such as the female body image and the so-called male gaze.
Queer artists are also represented on the list, with their work exploring topics that are historically considered taboo in the region, such as sexual desire and gender identity.
Li Hei Di is a China-born, London-based multidisciplinary artist whose painting, sculpture and performance art explore themes of sensuality and sexual identity through images of limbs and torsos in kaleidoscopic colors. Li made The Artsy Vanguard 2023-2024 list of most promising artists for a unique style inspired by erotic literature, music and cinema.
Chinese artist Li Hei Di.
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Similarly, Brussels-based Filipino artist Joshua Serafin combines dance, music and theater with live performance, typically exploring concepts of cultural identity, transmigration and queer representation. A permanent house artist at the Viernulvier arts center in Belgium, Serafin has also performed internationally, including at the ANTI – Contemporary Art Festival in Finland, TONO Festival in Mexico and the HAU Hebbel am User in Berlin.
Reviving old traditions
Some 30 under 30 listers in The Arts category are also looking to the past, to revive or breathe a new life into long-forgotten practices and instruments.
Interested in falcons since she was in grade school, Misato Ishibashi apprenticed with a Japanese falconer and, while in high school, set up a falconry company with her father. It helps farmers scare away other types of birds using falcons. She is also on the board of a non-profit organization promoting the culture of falconry through demonstrations and lectures. One of her goals is to get the 2,000-year-old practice of Japanese falconry recognized as an intangible cultural asset.
Japanese falconer Misato Ishibashi.
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Also in Japan, the humble ukulele has brought Rio Saito many accolades including winning Hawaii’s Dukes Ukulele Contest, the International Ukulele Contest as well as Amateur Night at New York’s Apollo Theater. At the age of 13, he took the grand prize at the Diners Club Social Jazz Session 2013-2014, hosted by jazz guitarist Lee Ritenour at the Blue Note Tokyo. Saito played on two albums that earned Na Hoku Hanohano Awards, dubbed Hawaii’s Grammys, in 2015 and 2017 and was nominated for another for his first solo album RIO in 2022.
Zhang Qianyu from China has devoted her life to the accordion since the age of 4. As a child she traveled thousands of kilometers to study music at Beijing’s Central Conservatory of Music. She moved to London to live in the rarified world of accordion musicians and researchers. Zhang created China’s first accordion trio, VIVA, played solo shows at London’s prestigious Wigmore Hall and performed on BBC Radio 3 with the Nuevo Tango Quintet, which she founded. Zhang also founded the London Tango Festival.
–Additional reporting by Danielle Keeton-Olsen.
Check out our complete 2024 30 Under 30 Asia: The Arts list here, and the full 2024 30 Under 30 Asia coverage, click here.
