Hi everyone, this is Ella Wong from Good Growth
for The Vegan Report. Today we're exploring a
question that's been on our minds. How do we
grow the plant -based movement in Asia without
falling into the leaky bucket trap? For those
of you who might be new to us, Good Growth focuses
on research, strategy, and prototyping solutions
for sustainable food systems in Asia. We just
released our first good growth strategy brief,
which we're seeing as a quarterly Intel drop
to share actionable insights we're seeing in
the field. So before we dive in, a quick reminder
to connect with me. My email and social links
are in the episode notes. You can find new episodes
every Wednesday on this podcast. And if you found
this conversation helpful, please share this
episode with your community. So let's start with
the all protein market. One observation we've
seen is a gap between interest and action. In
our research, 75 % of those who have not tried
plant -based meat in Southeast Asia are willing
to try it, but repeat purchases are low. So it
makes us wonder, is this a demand or a marketing
problem? What we've seen is Western playbooks
that focus on abstract values like saving the
planet may not resonate in Asia, where food choices
are deeply cultural and driven by specific health
and cost considerations. But instead of concluding
that there's a demand ceiling, we're interested
to explore how the movement could apply market
research to local campaigns. So some ideas that
we come up with that we think are worth exploring
include marketing consortiums, where organizations
pool resources to hire the same regional experts
who may have launched successful campaigns in
Asia. Another one is channel testing to see if
messengers like healthcare professionals or targeted
segment messaging are more effective than broad
-based campaigns. And this brings us to Nick's
point about growing the movement. We've noticed
a pattern where international NGOs scale into
new markets but struggle to find a model that
works on the ground. We call this the leaky bucket,
where resources flow in but we lose credibility
and burn out talent because global strategies
might conflict with local contexts. So the good
news is the movement is starting to update on
these lessons. Our take is that we should explore
infrastructure that operationalizes contextual
knowledge. So this isn't just about hiring locally.
It's about building systems to support this local
talent. Some soft landing ideas that we think
are worth exploring include hosting regional
knowledge sharing forums. So maybe using models
like fuck up nights, where organizations can
openly share failures and what didn't work before,
before others commit resources. Or maybe there's
contextual onboarding kits, so downloadable resources
for priority markets that synthesize desk research,
stakeholder maps, and what's been tried before
so newcomers don't start from zero. And then
there's also mixed methods intelligence gathering.
So while we know now that AI is the default research
tool for most organizations, which makes a lot
of sense, supplementing that desktop research
with local insights from advocates and researchers
on the ground will provide much more context.
We're currently building a platform for this.
So DM me if you're interested to know more or
join us. Finally, we have to look at how we find
resources to grow the movement. Often the default
is to build more fellowships or incubators to
support young talent or fundraise from within
the movement. But in Asia, there is a wealth
of resources from other movements that we should
consider tapping into. So instead of building
from scratch, we believe the movement can build
bridges. For example, funding -wise, the top
10 institutional funders like Foundations and
Corporate Giving in Asia give a total average
of 2 billion US dollars annually. and our movement
has not tapped into any of these resources. Other
local institutional capital can also be found
in international schools, chambers of commerce,
and religious foundations that may already have
mandates for public health, climate, or animal
welfare. And in terms of how to engage newer
donors, we're very interested in events -based
activation, so like shark tank formats or impact
tours. which go beyond traditional pitch decks
to create experiential, peer -driven engagement
for regional donors that might be new to vegan
and plant -based advocacy issues. And with talent,
we could explore reverse incubation. So recruit
proven leaders from climate tech, social impact
sector, and train them in animal advocacy to
design interventions that make sense locally.
We're hoping that this strategy brief becomes
a starting point for conversations about what
to do in Asia. We're currently working on a series
interviewing Asian -based leaders on lessons
they've learned from working and expanding in
the region, and we'll share that regularly on
our socials and newsletters. You can find the
full brief at goodgrowth .io or reach out to
us at hello at goodgrowth .io with any specific
questions. Thank you for listening and thank
you for all the work that you do for animals.