That is the message from now Queenstown-based entrepreneur Alex Worker, who says feeding people responsibly is one of the country’s key roles.
Mr Worker, who has an international background in food, ventures and agriculture, is guest speaker at a Welcome to the Digital Economies workshop in Queenstown on Tuesday.
The workshop is being led by Dr Antje Fiedler and Dr Benjamin Fath, from the University of Auckland Business School, who specialise in dealing with North Asian markets. They would share their knowledge with Queenstown, Wanaka and Central Otago businesses.
Designed to help Kiwi business owners improve their digital expertise and grow their confidence and knowledge of North Asia’s digital economy, the workshop was an initiative from the North Asia Centre of Asia-Pacific Excellence, a New Zealand Government-funded agency hosted at the University of Auckland.
Mr Worker would share his industry knowledge and considerable personal experiences in dealing with North Asia, which he described as a key growth market for New Zealand.
North Asia’s digital landscape played a "vital role" in the customer journey. "Understanding the digital landscape is not just about knowing what online channels are needed to market your business in North Asia.
"It’s about having an overview understanding of what digital ecosystems exist in North Asia, because these are different and change quickly in every country (China, South Korea and Japan).
"They can even differ in use between cities, and it is critical Kiwi businesses are aware of these digital nuances, as it can help with strengthening a business model and value capture," he said.
The Hong Kong-born son of a now retired veteran New Zealand diplomat, Mr Worker completed a commerce degree in international business at the University of Otago.
He later studied for an international MBA at Tsinghua University. His thesis was on how New Zealand had moved up its value chain in China.
He led marketing and communications for Fonterra’s international farming business unit based in Beijing and he also co-founded The Hatchery, Beijing’s first culinary incubator, which was about bringing the world’s flavours and cuisines to China.
Mr Worker is now country manager for Impossible Foods Aotearoa New Zealand and South Pacific. He launched and was now leading the growth of that business across food service, retail and co-manufacturing partnerships.
His involvement with Impossible Foods — which initially started with recreating beef from plants — stemmed from meeting the company’s very first employee, Nick Halla.
What he had learned from his previous experiences had been invaluable and, for existing meat and protein industry players, plant-based products should not be seen as scary, he said.
China had taught him a lot about business. It was so fast and so big and the Chinese also permitted failure into their models. It demonstrated the need to move fast, be focused, design for failure and maximise upside.
Mr Worker had not returned to China since Covid-19 and, while the country was going through its own structural challenges, there were still a lot of opportunities there, he said.
Passionate about growing food technology companies, he held founding positions in both NewFish — a biotechnology nutrition company on a mission to create nutrition using microalgae technology — and LILO Desserts which created functional desserts utilising upcycled fruit waste from New Zealand orchards.
He is also chairman of Future Food Aotearoa, a not-for-profit movement driving advancement in New Zealand’s food tech ecosystem. It involved companies with annual revenue from $1 million to $20m.
Mr Worker believed the industry should not wait for Government hand-outs, saying the Government needed to enable but not control. Most of those companies had New Zealand stories but the model was changing and it was more like exporting a service than a product.
Models had changed and so strategies had to change. It was all about value capture and knowing consumers directly, whether that was in the food or tourism industries.
"We know what we do but we don’t know what we don’t do yet," he said.
