The Future Proof Hub is delighted to have the opportunity meet with and interview Anson Wong who is the Co-Founder of Eat100 - a mobile app that is focused on solving the food surplus problem in Hong Kong. Eat100 allows participating restaurants to sell their surplus food to consumers at discounted prices. For the consumer, the app is very easy to use and does facilitate more awareness of this issue. Check out their website here.
Q: Thank you for your time Anson. Can you tell us about yourself - what is your background?
A: Eat100 started in November 2023. The app was launched in March 2024. Our project was admitted into the City University HK Tech300 program and we also joined the HK Science Park program. During my time at University, I recall the many late nights I spent in the library and noted a number of instances where there was a lot of surplus food being disposed of. After speaking to the relevant people, I found there was an opportunity to sell surplus food at lower prices without the need to dispose of them.
Q: What inspired you to become an entrepreneur right after University?
A: I felt this was the right time do this - to start while young when I do not have much family responsibilities. It is a good time to take risk. If I chose to do this as a side business, it would take much longer. I would regret this if someone else took this opportunity so I felt this is a good time to start this entrepreneur journey.
Q: Can you tell us what the objective of Eat100 is?
A: Eat100 is an app whose mission is to educate locals on food waste and to enable restaurants, bakeries, and food outlets to contribute to the solution of the problem of food waste by selling their surplus food to consumers at a reduced price.
Q: Are there any challenges to convince both consumers and food outlets to join your platform?
A: One of the challenges is the perception of food waste in Hong Kong. Some locals may not see the problem of food waste so clearly and what the benefit is. We need to have behaviour change and in order to do that, we need to educate them on the problem and what our solution entails.
Q: What were the challenges to get the app off the ground and running? Did you build the app in-house or use an outside vendor?
A: We joined the CityU program which provided some funding and a co-working space. My partner is on the tech side who built the app so we did not need to pay a vendor to build this. We find it is better generally to develop the app in-house as we understand our business better.
Q: What are the challenges of sourcing restaurants / bakeries to participate? Is it a hard sell?
A: For those we do not have relationships with, we often need to conduct cold sourcing of restaurants and bakeries to participate. The challenge is to convince them of the benefit of managing surplus food and to join our platform. One challenge is the need on the restaurant side to dedicate resource to keep inventory up to date. We also attend restaurant and food industry events and conferences and opening ceremonies to develop relationships.
Q: What about the large restaurant groups - how difficult is it to convince them to participate?
A: We will target them at the suitable time once we build out the platform more given we are still a startup. We are talking to various people to potentially join our team and they may have relationships with the large groups which will be useful when that time comes. In order to manage orders for larger groups we will need to expand on ur side as well so will consider this at the right time.
Q: In terms of the app logistics - how do users order and how to keep participant inventory up to date on the app?
A: Users can go into the app and choose the restaurant and product available then pick it up at the designated time. Often the product is a surprise bag of products - this makes it easier for participant restaurants to manage inventory easier. The challenge is to tailor specific products because on the restaurant side they also need to devote resource to manage the products and inventory to be made available via our app.
Q: How do you rate how well Eat100 has gone so far? Anything you would have done differently?
A: It has gone well. One thing we could have focused more on in the beginning is the building of the reputation and brand to be a bit more visible as we approached restaurants to participate. We are more focused on a strategy of organising events to address this.
Q: In terms of future plans for Eat100 - any new features, markets, products planned?
A: We have a few ideas planned. For instance we want to make the UI better to enhance the experience for users and participants. We also want to deepen our social interaction with them. For instance one idea is to develop a leadership board to share those users and restaurants that are the most active in contributing to reducing food waste. We may also competitions as well to showcase those contributing to the solution of this problem.We will continue to focus on Hong Kong market for the time being.
Q: Do you have any views on how AI can impact food waste management (either in the app or more generally from apps like yourselves or store owners?)
A: Yes - in the coming few years we want to apply AI into our prices to get more data on food choices, restaurant selections, least popular food choices and even how holidays and weather affect consumer behaviour. With this data we can consider more dynamic pricing models and provide this data to our participants to make product recommendations.
Q: Turning to the theme of the blog Future Proof Hub, do you have any advice to young people on how they can prepare and protect and grow their careers in the future in an era of AI and continual disruption?
A: If young people decide to be entrepreneurs, my advice is to be more sensitive on what’s happening around them and react accordingly. To not be on auto-pilot mode and continually think of improvements you can make to adapt to the environment they are facing.
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