Tan Ding Jie

He’s making your morning coffee, without the beans. Tan Ding Jie is the Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Prefer, a Singapore-based food tech company reimagining the future of flavour. Through proprietary fermentation and food upcycling, Prefer transforms by-products like soy pulp, spent barley, and broken rice into sustainable bioflavours starting with their headline-making bean-free coffee and soon, a cacao-free chocolate.

A former A*STAR scientist Ding Jie took a leap from the lab to entrepreneurship, learning that the real challenge isn’t in the science but in knowing when to stop perfecting and start launching. For him, true innovation sits at the crossroads of deep R&D and commercial urgency.

When he's not in the kitchen or testing microbes, you’ll find him out running because staying sharp requires movement, too. Through Prefer, he’s not just replacing your favourite treats, he's rebuilding food systems to be climate-resilient, scalable, and deliciously unexpected.