When life brings you together, you seize it – to make great things happen.
That’s how we came together, three quarks forming a baryon.
Join us in our quantum leap to transform global food systems.
#FoodSustainabilityintheAnthropocene
We are awaiting your participation in #AwesomeAliveness.
#TheViridianArrival is our playbook.
Email: gabriel.fong@thekindgrower.com
Under a full scholarship from DBS Bank, Mr. Gabriel Fong read Economics at Fitzwilliam College, University of Cambridge, UK. After a stint at DBS Bank, he joined the Investment Banking Department of Goldman Sachs, focusing on IPOs, M&As and other capital market activities. He then moved into Private Equity where he spent the majority of his career with Morgan Stanley and Och-Ziff Capital. At Och-Ziff, Gabriel headed the Special Investments Group focusing on private investments. During this period, he invested and worked with portfolio companies to drive growth.
From end-2013, Gabriel took a more entrepreneurial route. He was an early investor and Executive Chairman of GoGoX, a technology startup that subsequently listed in Hong Kong focusing on logistics. He remains an active investor and contributor to the startup space, helping young Founders grow their business.
Gabriel has a special interest in food, health and sustainability. He believes Food should be produced responsibly and honestly, bursting with natural healthiness and deliciousness, accessible to everyone and importantly, harvested in a way that respects Earth and our future generations. He co-founded The Kind Grower to encapsulate these values. Over the years, the integrity of the food chain has diminished. The Kind Grower has an ambitious vision – to play its part in re-establishing food chain integrity, food quality and safety, and hence, trust and commitment between producers, consumers and our Earth.
Gab is zen, unlike PEK, who is full of twirls.
Email: pengean.khoo@thekindgrower.com
Ms Peng-Ean Khoo read Economics at Fitzwilliam College, University of Cambridge, UK, and is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales since 1997. She trained in London with Price Waterhouse in the Products Group, and subsequently, in the Technology Group, Boston of PricewaterhouseCoopers. Her experience included UK statutory accounts audits, UK plc annual report, British Railways Board Privatisation, US SEC filing, US technology start-ups audits, NASDAQ pre-IPO Preparation, and Transaction Support for mergers & acquisitions.
Since 2000, Peng-Ean has co-founded Bilberries Blue servicing sustainable enterprises that support and enable the eco-systemic emergence of Good Work in local, regional, international economic development and in the capital marketplace. In Singapore, in the capacity as finance consultant or interim Chief Financial Officer roles, Peng-Ean’s corporate clients included serving certain entities in NTUC Social Enterprises.
She founded One Love Ltd, a company limited by guarantee, in 2014, to create and sustain birth to lifelong transition and support platforms. She hopes to enable responsible access, opportunities and meaningful livelihoods as she continues to ponder Amartya Sen’s statement in ‘Development as Freedom’ (1999): ‘Development is indeed a momentous engagement with freedom’s possibilities.’ In 2020, during Covid-19, she completed the TEUWB (The Economics of Universal Wellbeing) book and lecture series, together with the Bilberries Blue Sustainability Stewards, One Love Board of Directors, Human Engagement Studio Founders and Bilberries Blue Youth Stewardship Programme co-Directors, and we published it as “A Gift for All”, as our joint-decision to serve humanity with business sustainability leadership that honours the gifting economy and the accompaniment of dignity.
During 2015 to 2021, she understood what it takes to keep going in dreams that are really perennial, because we make it so.
In 2022, Peng-Ean Khoo co-founded The Kind Grower, with Gabriel Fong and Khoo Peng Keat, and she will never look back since.
https://www.fitz.cam.ac.uk/about/history/40-years-women/hamburger-hill-provides-opportunity-peng-ean
Here comes PK, who is really the one at the farm, while Gab & PEK do some overdue promoter duties.
Email: pengkeat.khoo@thekindgrower.com
Mr Khoo Peng Keat left his hometown in Ipoh at the age of 16 to further his studies in the UK. He holds a BA(Hons) Finance from University of Manchester, UK and MSc in Construction Management from University of Birmingham, UK. He has over 20 years’ experience in business start-ups ranging from social enterprises, hospitality, F&B and specialises in agribusiness development integrating agricultural production, value-added processing, packaging, distribution and marketing activities.
In 2004, he co-founded Bilberries Blue, in the early years as a finance and business consulting boutique practice. He played a key role to incubate a portfolio of start-up clients providing business planning and decision support as well as business coaching in start-up operational matters. In 2007, he co-founded charKOL, an art social enterprise.
Since 2005, Peng Keat has been involved in Sigar Highlands, a 943 acres eco-tourism resort township development. In 2009, he returned to Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia and was appointed Executive Director in Sigar Highlands, Sdn Bhd, a subsidiary of Desa Khazanah. He provided operational leadership in project mobilisation for Phase 1 of the project covering overall infrastructure development, concept development, feasibility study including sourcing of financing.
In 2009, he co-founded Moonriver Lodge located in Sigar Highlands, a 2 acres rainforest highlands farmstay and pioneer’s capsule for collaborative and exploration work in the areas of sustainable living, farming, agroforestry, forestry, outdoor learning and adventure, arts and sports.
In 2012, he co-founded Food Forest Farm located in the rainforest highlands of Malaysia to pioneer the growing and supply of safe and good food produced using a sustainable methodology which can be gentle to the ecosystem and yet productive. He believes in responsible farming, balancing biodiversity with productivity in a passive and mutually benefiting manner.
In 2022, Peng Keat co-founded The Kind Grower to expand the #nutrientdenseinsecticidefree food supply chain globally. Good and safe food should equate to good nutrition. Good nutrition should be developed with little compromise to the ecosystem and should be made directly accessible. As it is a privilege to be able to grow food, our farming practice should be visible and authentically shared so that everyone can make their choices in the food they consume.
Kindness is a quality. A quality of being friendly, generous and considerate. Growing is life and growth is necessary for progress. The Kind Grower will bring the quality of kindness and growth of nutritious food for the wellness of all.
Food Forest Farm was a dream of the perfect farm in an Alice in wonderland world where food grows harmoniously, always available and people sing and dance joyfully. We have learnt to grow collaboratively and adapted to the unpredictability of every single living and non-living surrounding us.
Sigar Highlands is sustainable land development. Sustainability cannot be developed or engineered. It needs to be lived. Gentleness in approach with absolute respect to the earth and ecosystem. It’s the provider and nurturer of #safegoodfood.
Bilberries Blue Sustainability Stewards is a ground of beautiful people with a beautiful vision of care, community living, learning and everything that brings a smile to your face.
CharKOL is art and culture. How to respect and accept. To inspire and to protect. It’s love!
“Entrepreneurism is me,” Peng Keat reflects. It’s jumping into the emptiness and adventure and creation of products, services, friendship, relationships for a common goal. Economy is transaction. Someone gives and some revives…and a teaspoon of salt dropped into the river is encompassed by the volume…a teaspoon of salt dropped into a small cup can be overpowering. Its expression and impactful perspective is to create value and support daily living.
Desa Khazanah is family. My pain and my love!
Moonriver Lodge started as a song…we sing the chorus…we tried to flow but at the end of the day we all want it to be a permanent, peaceful home for all to appreciate, love and care forever.
Ipoh is the root and foundation of what we are today. It is never about leaving or coming home because it is where our values are nurtured.
Farming is like walking or cycling. It should be a labour of love. It’s repetitive work. The joy is always in the growing and enjoying the harvest. Traditionally when there is surplus the farmer would share, sell or process the harvest. It is never about the creation of products or how beautiful the packet of produce will look on the shelf and more about the taste, smell and origin of where the food comes from. And the labour of love with sweat and muscles.
The Farm business is organised and structured like the ecosystem. We should manage it as such. Every single operational detail of farming is interrelated. While we can introduce the best technology to assist the labour of love, we cannot take the labour out of food production. There is a common sense, and inner energy and living vibrations, that only humans can sense and react to. We organise the business like a conductor for all to move together to the sound of music.
Seed is genome. It’s history. It’s what the earth gives. It’s the start of the growth journey or natural expression. From seed to birth and then death. It’s also carefully selected over time and nurtured to provide what we perceive as nice to eat and good for health.
Boron and calcium are two of the many minerals needed for growth. Humans and plants are alike. We need to grow and thrive in the right environment. We need nutrition and we need love and care. We need our hairs trimmed and people to talk to. The minerals fed to plants are converted to food which are then converted to growth and ultimate consumed by humans who will benefit from the nutrition. There are at least 15 minerals in vegetables, I will list them for you later.
Leadership is a privilege. It is one person who is able to coordinate, communicate, guide and support others for a common purpose and objective. Patience, skill, perseverance and gutsiness are some of the traits of a good leader. It is not about eating first or last. It is about eating together happy, sharing the pains and happiness.
I can go out all day looking at plants, sensing, observing, troubleshooting…figuring out what we need to do to support optimum growth and adapting as well as constant searching for what works in a particular ecosystem or situation. Live and let live. Giving and taking. Patience and acceptance of the fractal nature of plants and living life.
Money has a strange relationship with me. It’s never ever a possession. Just something to pay the bill…buy something you like or a flower for your loved ones.
We touch, we feel and we react. Given a choice, a farmer would go barefoot and touch the plants and fruit with their barehands. This is the unexplained connection that allows us to feel. Feeling, observation and adaptive action to support growth.
We go barehands and barefoot.
“The Road is Long”, as they say, but we say, Bring it on, and let’s bring it to the skies. And back to earth.
#OneSunOneEarthIChooseItWithYouAlways
Yes, PK is also PEK’s brother. And so is, Gab.
#HeAin’tHeavyHeismyBrother
With some good cheer, and super great efforts, we ought to be able to get us all to SDG2030.
Founders of The Kind Grower
October 10, 2022
Write your responses to: baryon@thekindgrower.com
Ideas are birthed, only in dreams. And clarified actions.
The materialisation of the quark can only be, if we make it so.
#AwesomeAliveness
TKGOdetoLifeJoyNature
[COMPLETION]
THE KIND GROWER
#FoodSustainabilityintheAnthropocene
The Kind Grower is our living story of #safegoodfood sustainability and flourishing, #forourearthschildren.
ONE EARTH. ONE SUN. ONE HUMANITY.
@thekindgrower