HAPPY MEALS
Shama Sukul Lee is on a huge mission: to create plant-based meat-replacement products that are clean, sustainable and firmly in the mainstream. By Victoria Baker.
Shama Sukul Lee is on a huge mission: to create plant-based meat-replacement products that are clean, sustainable and firmly in the mainstream.
Let’s face it, meat is delicious.” Although this might seem an unexpected sentiment from the founder of a company aiming to replace meat as the world’s staple protein, it’s reflective of Shama Sukul Lee’s pragmatic and market-led approach. “We have to create products that are equal to or better than the status quo in order to create real choice for consumers and make an impact,” she explains of the challenge for her New Zealand-based business, Sunfed.
The journey began in 2012, when Lee decided to take a year off from her role in software engineering. “I had a bit of an existential crisis. I started to feel unfulfilled, unsettled and hollow,” she says. This time, during which she closed herself off from social media, allowed her to think deeply about her purpose in life. Coincidentally, she was also on a personal journey to eat less meat. In a process common to many start-ups, the personal coalesced with the professional and a new business was born.
So, why should we be reconsidering our juicy burgers and succulent chicken? In a word: sustainability. “The energy used in food production eclipses all other industries, including transport,” says Lee. “As the industry is more intensified and grows in scale, the risks also grow – of damage to soil, water, deforestation and food safety. It’s the definition of unsustainable.” Her small team, including husband Hayden, set out to find an alternative, which could be sustainable even as it scaled up. They landed on yellow peas, which don’t require excessive water, don’t have a negative impact on soil and are a fast-growing crop.
The technical challenge, of course, is to replicate the succulence and texture of meat in a product that you can use in all the ways meat is, from high-heat stir-fries to slow-cooked curries. Sunfed’s first product is like chicken – with the only noticeable difference from the real thing being its naturally yellow colour. But that will stay; Lee is insistent that the products be clean and healthy, with no unnecessary ingredients. It’s high in protein, which makes it satiating, and low in fat, and you can buy it either frozen or chilled. Beef-free burgers are in the pipeline, too, with similar health credentials. Both aim to be genuine alternatives to meat for everyday families, rather than specialty products, and Lee is quick to disavow any element of ‘preachiness’ around a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle.
If it all sounds easy, it hasn’t been. Lee’s progression from straight-A student to software engineer had been smooth, so starting what turned out to be a hardware business has been a sometimes-bumpy road. She and her team – none with food industry experience – have effectively created a new production industry, with all its associated infrastructure, to support Sunfed’s signature chicken-free chicken. “To create software, all you need is coffee and a laptop. With hardware, each iteration or prototype requires significant capital. And there is no plug-and-play infrastructure; we’ve had to build all that up from scratch,” says Lee.
She describes entrepreneurship as a personal journey, too, requiring reserves of energy and self-knowledge. “Starting a company means you’re constantly being stress-tested,” Lee says. “There is one challenge after another, and you have to learn to enjoy the process or you’ll crumble with the pressure and fast pace.”
Her years of formal education had created a way of thinking that Lee also had to abandon. “To be an entrepreneur, you have to be comfortable with the unknown,” she explains. With a successful New Zealand launch under her belt, and a recent round of fundraising allowing her to scale up the team and prepare for an Australian launch this year, the future looks promising, and Lee’s motivation is personal. “The reason I keep going is because my mission is much bigger than me,” she says. “My intent is to leave the world better than I found it.”
See Shama Sukul Lee at Vogue Codes in Melbourne on June 5, and Sydney on June 15. Head to codes.vogue.com.au for tickets.
“We have to create products that are equal to or better than the status quo in order to create real choice for consumers and make an impact”