Alan Lai
Name: Alan Lai
Company: Teapasar
Job Title: Co-Founder & Executive Director
Presentation Title: ‘Harnessing Technology, Fighting Tea Fraud’
Alan is the Executive Director of Teapasar, an omni-channel global tea marketplace, offering over 800 teas and related products direct from artisanal brands and farms. Alan is a research engineer by training, and has spent a large part of his career in United Kingdom, China and Singapore in the investment and technology industries. Alan is also the organizing Chairman of the annual Singapore Tea Festival. Alan completed his Executive programme at Tsinghua School of Management, and graduated with Diplome d’Ingenieur from Ecole Centrale Paris and Masters and Bachelors of Engineering (1st Class Honours) from the National University of Singapore.
There’s a name for it: tea fraud. A number of high profile scandals in recent years, such as China-made teas with cancer-causing additives and cheap teas masquerading as expensive brews, have made people cautious about their once-relaxing cuppa. To protect consumers from health issues caused by drinking these teas, governments are relying on QR codes on packages or sending samples to labs for testing – but it’s a costly and slow process. Recent technological advances in data analytics, machine learning and spectrometry have made what was once previously impossible, possible. Science is now able to identify food molecular structure cheaply and accurately – and that has had impressive impact on authentication. The speaker will share more on how technology should be harnessed to improve the supply chain efficiency of the tea industry, and more importantly strengthen the trust amongst consumers as we move into the new era of increasing food fraud and unscrupulous adulteration.
