From Lab to Market to Regeneration

1. Please introduce yourself and tell us about your role as CEO and Co-Founder of TASTEBUD LAB and Bio Buddy. What inspired you to work in the agrifood innovation sector?

My background is in business and marketing. My work moved deeper into food innovation because I kept seeing the same problem. Thailand and Southeast Asia have strong agri culture, capable food manufacturers, talented researchers and entrepreneurs. Yet good science and good ideas do not automatically become scalable businesses. What is often missing is the link between technology, product development, commercial validation, industry partners, investment and market access.

We built TASTEBUD LAB and Bio Buddy to close that gap, and we do it through three roles. As a food system architect, we produce the evidence and frameworks that shape where the system should go. Our national study of Thailand's food-tech startup ecosystem with the National Innovation Agency is one example. As an innovation enabler, we help startups, SMEs and corporates develop, validate and launch new products through bootcamps, acceleration, corporate innovation and venture building. As a partnership orchestrator, we bring international technology companies, investors and policymakers into the Thai and ASEAN ecosystem. Future Food Hub in Bangkok is the physical home for all three. It is where companies, researchers, founders and partners meet, test, showcase and co-create.

AGRITECHNICA ASIA 2026 shows how this works in practice. We brought insights from agrifood business consultation and study work with the World Bank into the Food System Conference. We then partnered with DLG to connect that discussion to industry and the Investment Forum. Evidence becomes far more powerful when industry, technology providers, entrepreneurs and investors are in the same conversation. We took the same approach with the Global Food Security and Technology Forum at ProPak Asia 2026. This is what I enjoy most about the work. We can move from studying a challenge to convening the right people, and then to building something practical together.

2. Through the Future Food Hub, you connect startups, corporates, investors, and researchers. What are the most exciting developments currently shaping the ASEAN agrifood ecosystem?

The biggest shift is that ASEAN is no longer only a food production base. It is becoming a place where new products, technologies, intellectual property and business models originate. The region is gaining confidence in creating value here, rather than only producing for somebody else. 

We see this across our pipeline. Companies are exploring functional foods and preventive health, new ingredient applications, AI-supported consumer insight, biotechnology, advanced processing, and new value from food-industry side streams. Corporates are more open to external innovation, and universities are looking for stronger routes to market. 

A current example is our work connecting European circular-bioeconomy technology with Thai food and agribusiness companies. We are mapping processors with by-product streams, from soybean and fruit processing to bakery and other manufacturing. The goal is to find where materials now treated as low-value residues can become inputs for new biological value chains. It looks like a sustainability project. In reality, it only works when technology, supply-chain economics, corporate partnership and a viable business case come together. This is where regeneration becomes concrete: every residue that re-enters the value chain puts less pressure on land and water and gives processors a new income stream.

That is also how we run Future Food Hub. It is not simply a venue or an incubator. An international company can use it to enter the Thai and ASEAN market, meet the right corporates, researchers, startups and public-sector partners, run a workshop or marketvalidation sprint, and then move to a pilot or commercial project. The format changes with each partner, but the objective does not: turn access to the ecosystem into something that moves forward.

3. How do you see the role of investment in accelerating sustainable food-system transformation in Southeast Asia?

Investment is essential, but the main challenge is not simply "more capital." The challenge is creating more investable opportunities. 

Agrifood ventures often sit between research and industry for too long. Before investors can back scale-up, a company may need technical validation, manufacturing economics, regulatory readiness, customers, corporate partners and evidence that the solution works outside the laboratory. That is why we connect investment to commercialization much earlier. 

At AGRITECHNICA ASIA 2026, we deliberately linked the Food System Conference with an Investment Forum, because a conversation about sustainable food systems should not end on stage. It should help technologies and entrepreneurs meet organizations that can pilot, buy, partner or invest. The same thinking drives our bootcamps, acceleration programs and Bio Buddy venture building. We take teams from opportunity to validation, business model, industry partnership, market entry and, when the timing is right, investment. Capital is far more useful when these pieces are built together.

Southeast Asia also offers opportunities investors often overlook. Transformation can come from frontier biotechnology. It can also come from upgrading processing, reducing food loss, creating higher-value products from agricultural resources, and turning industrial by-products into useful inputs. The strongest projects are those where environmental regeneration, farmer livelihoods and economic returns reinforce each other. That is the investment thesis I believe ASEAN can lead on.

4. Looking ahead, what trends or technologies do you expect to have the greatest impact on food systems over the next five to ten years?

I expect the biggest impact to come from convergence rather than one winning technology. I describe it as Food × Science × Technology.

1. The first area is preventive health and nutrition. Food is moving closer to health, with rising demand for functional benefits, evidence-based claims, personalization, and products for healthy ageing and longevity. This is why we are developing our Future Food Leader Summit 2027 around "HACK YOUR HEALTH: Food × Science × Technology," connecting personal health with new business opportunities and the wider health system.
2. The second is biotechnology and circular biomanufacturing. ASEAN has enormous agricultural and food-processing resources. The opportunity is not just to produce commodities. We can use fermentation, enzymes, biological conversion and better processing to create higher-value ingredients and materials from those resources and from side streams that are currently underused.
3. Third is AI. We already use it for consumer insight, opportunity mapping and product innovation. Over time it will connect R&D, formulation, manufacturing and supply-chain decisions. The value comes when AI is combined with real food-science capability and industry data, not used in isolation.
4. Fourth is the link between food innovation and production technology. Working with DLG and processing-industry platforms such as ProPak has reinforced this for me. A new ingredient, healthier product or biotech solution only creates impact when it can be manufactured reliably, economically and at scale. That opens a rich space for collaboration between food science, machinery, automation, resource efficiency and new business models.

Underneath all four sits a bigger shift. The next decade is not about sustaining the food system we have. It is about regenerating it: restoring soil, water and biodiversity, keeping value in rural economies, and designing waste out of the chain. The technologies above are the tools. Regeneration is the direction.

5. Finally, what advice would you give to entrepreneurs, researchers, and young professionals who want to make a meaningful impact in the agrifood sector?

• First, start with a real problem and get close to the people who have it. A technically impressive solution is not enough if a manufacturer cannot integrate it, a consumer does not value it, or the economics do not work.
• Second, learn to work across disciplines. Our most productive projects happen when a food scientist, entrepreneur, corporate team, technology provider and investor look at the same opportunity together. Often the breakthrough is not another piece of technology. It is getting the right capabilities around the same problem early enough.
• Third, go international earlier. Through DLG, Future Food Network, and other networks across Europe, ASEAN and the Middle East, I have seen how quickly a local innovation gets stronger when it meets different markets, technologies and partners. ASEAN entrepreneurs should build on the region's strengths, but they should not wait for perfection before engaging globally. Those conversations shape the product, partnership model and route to market from day one.
• Finally, focus on execution. A conference conversation should lead to a working session. A working session should lead to a pilot. A pilot should produce evidence for a commercial or investment decision. For me, meaningful ecosystem building is not measured by how many people we connect, but by what those connections are able to build together. 

I am very glad to join the DLG community. To members exploring Southeast Asia, whether as technology providers, processors or investors, our door at Future Food Hub is open. Let's build the next chapter of ASEAN's food system together.

More information: www.tastebudlab.com