Jonathan Ng

Having graduated from SMU’s Lee Kong Chian School of Business in January 2016, Jonathan described his time at SMU as a short and eventful journey. He recalled with fondness the seminar-style lessons where he learnt freely from his peers and professors.

One significant moment in school that fuelled Jonathan’s entrepreneurial spirit was when he fared poorly in a module that he loved and used to excel in. That experience taught him that it did not matter how good he was at his work or how much he loved it if his superiors negated his efforts. From that pivotal point, Jonathan realised the importance of a good boss or leader in any organisation. Subsequently, he decided to become his own boss by starting his first two businesses while he was in school.

Another significant moment for Jonathan occurred during his Overseas Community Involvement Programme (OCIP) trip to Laos. At a primary school, the canteen vendor served free fried chicken wings to the kids as a snack every Wednesday. Witnessing this simple gesture from the canteen vendor and seeing how it gave the children a lot of happiness made Jonathan realise the things we take for granted, such as the abundance of food we have back at home. Inspired to continue making a difference, Jonathan rallied a couple of his friends and took up the responsibility to lead the next OCIP trip to Laos.

Today, Jonathan is the founder of SinFooTech, a Singapore Food Technology company that develops technologies to up-cycle food processing by-products into innovative food and beverage products. 

Sachi is gluten-free and contains high amounts of soy antioxidants called isoflavones. Soy whey is a waste by-product from the manufacture of tofu. For every 1kg of soybeans used to make 2kg of tofu, 5-10 litres of soy whey is disposed and pollutes water bodies.

The business started as a venture with a friend who handled the technological aspects of the business as its CTO, while Jonathan took charge of the business aspect, dealing with matters such as licensing and commercialisation. In the gruelling process of commercialisation, his partner left the business and Jonathan had to pick up both the technology and business aspects of SinFooTech.

Apart from that, being the first-of-its-kind in terms of technology and product, there were many challenges in their journey. Together with his team, they had tackled the regulations, technological translation from lab to commercial scale, and the licensing and commercialisation of their technology and product. The myriad of challenges required them to constantly push for breakthroughs and challenge the status quo.

Today, Jonathan considers himself lucky to have a great team of like-minded colleagues who share the same mission and vision as he does. He also attributes his success to the mentors who guided him in his entrepreneurial journey. Jonathan also counts himself fortunate to have institutions such as MTI, ESG, SMU and NUS, that helped him tackle various issues that he has encountered and spread the news of his work through the media and various connections.

Without them, Jonathan confessed, his journey would have been tougher, and it would not have been possible to reach where he is now – one step away from commercialisation. Jonathan hopes that with his perseverance and the help he received from his benefactors, he can successfully create a resource-efficient circular economy in the food manufacturing industry.

When asked what being listed on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 in Asia means to him, Jonathan cited it as a “milestone”. For Jonathan, being listed signifies the work that he and his colleagues have put into making their vision of a better world, is a reality that is recognised and shared with the public.

For his juniors, Jonathan advises that “the only limit is your imagination. Focus on the things you can control and worry not about the things you cannot.”