The chairman of Metagroup, the organisation behind the charity initiative which launched earlier this year, delves deep into his motivations and goals for the industry
Whether it’s early morning sprints at Sun Yat Sen Memorial Park or a marathon taking in the trails of Hong Kong’s picturesque mountains, the runs that Roger Chan have clocked up over the past year have been nothing short of inspiring. As the founder of the F&B Run Club and the chairman of Metagroup, Chan is a man who leads by example. The initiative, which launched in April earlier this year, began with a few key objectives: to strengthen ties within the F&B community, to encourage fitness for mental as well as physical wellbeing, and to raise awareness of and fundraise for charity partners. Chan also set a lofty goal for the club—to run, hike or walk enough kilometres equivalent to the distance to the moon, or 384,000 kilometres.
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The F&B Run Club community now has more than 530 members running, walking or hiking a collective average of 3,000-4,000 kilometres a week, even through an unrelenting summer of torrential rains and a record breaking number of days with hot weather warnings. Agung and Laura Prabowo, the power couple behind Penicillin bar, have racked up more than 4,000 kilometres between them since April, when the initiative began; on July 7, Metabev hosted its first awards ceremony celebrating the achievements of the community, with F&B icons such as Jay Khan of COA and Nikita Mavteev of The Old Man bagging accolades for their contributions.
To date, the initiative has raised HK$400,000 to benefit two of F&B Run Club’s selected charities: InspiringHK Sports Foundation, which aims to promote health, social mobility, gender equality and more through sport; and Lifewire Foundation, a local charity dedicated to providing urgent medical care to children with rare diseases. In July, HK$250,000 was donated by the ChinaChem group to benefit InspiringHK to support their work in developing sports programmes for underprivileged children from F&B industry families in Kwun Tong and Tsuen Wan.
As of July 25, the club have put in 60,296 kilometres, or 15.7 per cent of the target distance to the moon by the end of 2021. An overseas chapter of the F&B Run Club is also underway in India. With just under five months to go, we spoke to Chan about the mission, his motivations, and his best advice for runners.
We appreciate all you've done for the F&B industry over the last year. What is your primary motivator?
In the past few years, we all have been through some tough external challenges. This has taken its weight on our F&B industry and also pressures at home. We are limited to change things out of our hand, but wellness has helped me personally keep focused and positive at work and at home.
Over the years, customers have become friends, and we see our F&B industry as an integrated eco-system. Our first mission is to run to the moon which is 384,400 kilometres from earth. This is no easy feat, and individual heroics will not achieve this mission. Hence we will only be able to achieve it as a community. The pandemic has equalised everyone in this world, and we view all our F&B industry community as an integrated ecosystem, and want to do our best to channel positivity and channel benevolence along the way.
