Value Partners has launched a sustainable food fund for Hong Kong retail investors.

The Value Partners Asian Food and Nutrition Fund aims to capture opportunities from sustainable food and nutrition trends in Asia and is the first fund approved by the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission investing in Asia ex-Japan focused on food and nutrition trends.

“The launch of the fund marks a major milestone of Value Partner’ ESG franchise to leverage our robust proprietary ESG rating system to enhance and promote ESG practices in the region,” said Frank Tsui, managing director and head of ESG investment at Value Partners Group.

“The combination of rising focus on ESG-related issues in the food value chain and the increasing demand for food upgrade leads to many unique and exciting investment opportunities that the Fund aims to capture.”

The fund invests across the entire food value chain from farm to fork, and employs a bottom-up stock selection approach to identify companies that benefit from three structural trends, according to the fund factsheet.

The trends are growing demand on food and nutrition upgrade, increasing application of food and agriculture technology that improves sustainability and safety and increasing food services penetration.

It is managed by lead portfolio manager Norman Ho, senior investment director, and co-managed with Lilian Cao, investment director.

The fund allocates its asset in 30 to 50 high companies and negatively screened to exclude controversial sectors.

The fund’s base currency is in US dollar, but it also has other currency classes in Australian dollar, Renminbi, Singaporean dollar and Hong Kong dollar.