Jennifer Teo, 35, curator and cafe owner

She owns an eco-friendly cafe

Her cafe was started as a social enterprise

Back in 2007, Jennifer and her husband, Woon Tien Wei, set up Post-Museum, a cultural hub for art exhibitions, screenings and meetings, in a shophouse on Rowell Road in Little India.

They also turned the space next door into a quaint little vegetarian cafe, Food #03. “If you want to make money in F&B in Singapore, you don’t open a vegetarian eatery. But we chose to do so anyway,” says Jennifer. “By reducing meat consumption, we can make a difference to the environment.”

She tries to cut consumption

She is now 90 per cent vegetarian, although she admits it’s hard in a food-obsessed city like Singapore and still eats meat about once a month. She also laments how supermarket check-out girls always shove plastic bags in her face, making it more difficult to reduce waste.

To encourage people to reuse things, she’s organised the Singapore Really Really Free Market, which takes place at Post-Museum every two months, where people share their unwanted clothes, books, DVDs and household items with each other.

Being green is dirty, sweaty business, but someone’s got to do it

Food #03 turns the A/C on only on extremely hot days, about once a month or so. Other eco-friendly measures include composting its waste vegetables and bringing empty booze bottles all the way home to Seletar because there is no recycling bin nearby.

It also uses a homemade dishwashing detergent made from enzymes created by fermenting fruit and vegetables. Sounds icky, but Jennifer assures us it smells really nice.

Practising and preaching, but her friends don’t mind

“People need to realise that they have power, and with great power comes great responsibility. By not using that power, you’re shirking responsibility,” Jennifer says with quiet conviction.

When she sees her friends doing something she disapproves of, she nags at them to change. But she knows when to keep her opinions to herself, and her pontificating hasn’t cost her any friends – yet. “Anyway, I wouldn’t hang out with people who are too different from me!”

Food #03 is at 109 Rowell Rd, tel: 6396-7980.

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