“It can be hard to convince people to eat their cutlery – it’s quite a stretch of the imagination for most. When Crunch Cutlery started out with a Chinese soup spoon-shaped biscuit, consumers had a tough time dissociating it from cutlery. So last year, we worked with A*Star to develop creative designs that aren’t immediately recognisable as forks and spoons. We now retail on our website and at 17 locations in Singapore. We’ve also experimented with and launched edible cutlery in flavours such as brown sugar, which consumers find familiar, given the popularity of bubble tea in Asia.
Now, we’re setting up our factory, which will increase our output tenfold. We have our sights set on expanding overseas, throughout the Asian region and in Australia and New Zealand. We’re also working with an F&B partner to come up with a sugar-free, gluten-free and vegan product, which I think is in line with what the European, Australian and New Zealand markets are looking for.
![Crunch Cutlery co-founder Anna Lam on addressing our use of plastic](png/pixel.png)
When I started the company, I was aware that even if I could convince the entire world to use my edible cutlery, it’s only addressing part of the problem; there will still be food waste and food packaging waste. So one of the things I want to do is encourage people on an ongoing basis. On top of running a food business, we do corporate and social outreach, like through schools, corporate workshops and community centres. The idea is to give people a morale boost, to know that they’re not alone in their sustainability efforts. Hopefully, that motivates them to keep going.
It’s easy to make a pledge to say ‘I’ll be more sustainable’, but it’s more a matter of making this a sustained effort.
Anna Lam
I grew up in a time when you would go to the supermarket and come home with 20 plastic bags. I thought that was normal for many years, until I started learning about the environmental impact of plastic. It was only then that I looked at my own behaviour and thought, maybe I’m not the most sustainable person around. And from there, it’s been a slow journey of making changes. People are creatures of habit, so even if you understand the implication, it’s not always easy to follow through.
The knowledge and awareness of the sustainability crisis that we’re going through is quite strong, but I think the challenge is translating that into continued action. It’s easy to make a pledge to say ‘I’ll be more sustainable’, but it’s more a matter of making this a sustained effort. Everyone is on that journey.”