Over the last three years, Fish Marketing Organization (FMO) and Maxim’s Group have joined forces to make a change. Maxim’s Chinese Cuisine rolled out the “Local Farm Menu” program in 2022, with an aim to “promote local produce while supporting the aquaculture and sustainable development in Hong Kong”, as pointed out by Henry Yip, Market Manager of FMO.

“Hong Kong actually has a lot of excellent farmed fish products, something Maxim's Group has long noticed. This gave rise to the ‘Local Farm Menu’ partnership program. From fish farm visits to product testing, production quantity setting and menu design, every step is taken care of with the concerted effort of FMO, fish farmers, Maxim’s Procurement Department and Production Department, before a farmed fish dish is served to the customers.”

“Now, as the partnership program enters its third year, more varieties of farmed fish will be available. Other than the depurated oysters mentioned earlier, there will also be new species of fish such as Yuen Long’s Japanese seabass and rabbitfish,” said Yip. The restaurants under Maxim’s Group have launched an array of themed menus to support local fish farm development. For each set meal or dish sold, HK$10 will be donated to the Fisheries and Farmers Association of the New Territories for the purchase fish feed, fry and technical support, so that farmers are well-equipped to produce more quality fish. Recently, fish farms have introduced new species such as jade perch, batfish, black rabbit fish and speckled blue grouper, all of which are popular among consumers. Maxim’s Chinese Cuisine will continue its support for local aquaculture producers and contribute to the comprehensive development of the industry.

Through taking part in these partnerships, fish farms can acquire more resources to manage water quality and feed ratio, so as to optimize the fat and protein in fish, bringing to the market farmed fish that are tastier and safer than wild sea fish. “The so called ‘kerosene-tasting grey mullet’ are wild mullets contaminated by oil pollution in the sea. This won’t be an issue for farmed fish, so they are much safer.”

Savor more fresh ingredients and discover more stories. A healthy and sustainable local aquaculture industry does more than putting ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) into practice — it also brings a treat to everyone’s palate.

Though its vehicles rarely experience prolonged exposure to sunlight, Maxim’s and i2Cool decided to conduct a test run using Maxim’s transportation fleet to support decarbonization research and development. But as well as applying iPaint to some vehicles' roofs, the Maxim’s technical team found another test subject that was less obvious but no less critical, condensing water pipes of the Central air-conditioning system.

"The air-conditioning of the entire office building relies on the central water-cooled chiller system and dissipates heat through the cooling tower. Some of the condensing water pipes are vertical to the building, while the other horizontal ones must be exposed to the sun for a long time. One drawback is that they are susceptible to intense sunlight, leading to overheating and a need for increased power consumption to dissipate the heat.” explains Ken Ng, Infrastructure and Technology Project Manager of Maxim’s Group.

Maxim’s Group and the i2Cool team ultimately applied nearly 120 square meters of iPaint on the headquarters' rooftop and water pipes. Some areas were deliberately left unpainted in order to yield control data for future comparison.

"If the two parties hadn't deliberately explored the test site, no one would have considered trialing from the rooftop water pipe."

The professional research team at i2Cool includes professors, PhD graduates, and young scientists from the School of Energy and Environment, City University of Hong Kong, and Ken emphasizes that their cooling paint technology is unconventional and groundbreaking. To Maxim’s, this collaboration is less about reducing temperatures and cutting electricity bills, and more about creating synergy and mutual benefits by supporting local startups. Its significance is in exploring more possibilities for future environmental development.

Modern conventional farming and industrialized animal husbandry often deforest large pieces of land for a single purpose. Initially, plantations grow naturally on land, and through the process of photosynthesis, the plants help sequestrate carbon from the air, form soil carbon in the topsoil, and maintain the carbon cycle. Damaging the covering vegetation will inhibit the carbon cycle.

Human activities lead to the disappearance of trees on earth

According to a study published in “NATURE” in 2015, the earth currently homes 3 trillion trees. However, since anthropogenic activities like farming and industrial development starts, the number of trees has almost halved (49%).  The United Nations encourages enterprises to directly support tree planting or influence their supply chain to support sustainable farming and support businesses that adopt eco-friendly approaches in production.

Converting customer spending to support tree planting

This explains why Maxim’s Group has been planting trees in Asia since 2021 through an impact innovation start-up EcoMatcher. The first forest was born back in 2021 during the event -  In the Moo for Love, where over 50 outlets under Maxim’s Group participated as a gesture of support. Whenever customers purchase dishes made of plant based meat, part of the revenue goes into sponsorship for tree planting, the sponsorship has since continued throughout different campaigns. To date, Maxim's has sponsored the planting of six forests in Thailand with a total of 6,000 trees, benefitting 14 local tree-planting families. Maxim’s reforestation campaign enables consumers to take part in tackling climate change. Locally, Maxim’s has also collaborated with green organizations to support tree planting, for example, we planted 100 saplings on Lantau Island after Typhoon Mangkhut caused damage to the city in 2019.  

It is not hard to plant a tree but understanding the process and its impact transparently would be the key. EcoMatcher leverages various innovative technologies to make the whole tree-planting process easy and transparent, which is why Maxim’s has worked with them. By integrating tree farmer training, satellite orientation, and blockchain technology, EcoMatcher’s digital platform can collect and show information from latitude and longitude, plantation, date of planting, and weather to its current status clearly on your screen. You can see the smiling face of Ngor, a tree farmer in Northern Thailand.  You can read an introduction about his own family, and you can also see the trees planted a year ago up until now, that has helped sequestrate 25kg of carbon.

Ngor became a tree farmer 2 years ago, and to date, he has planted 10,000 trees.  He explains why he decided to plant these trees:

“The climate has become so drastically different now, and I hope to play a part in tackling climate change. We hope farmers can use natural fertilizers instead of artificial fertilizers in farming," said Ngor, a tree farmer in Northern Thailand.