Graham Taylor is the Founder/Director of So! Nutritious Co Ltd, who has worked in the New Zealand Dairy Industry for many years. He is married to Sue with 3 grown children and 6 grandchildren living in NZ. Graham & Sue have lived in Cambodia for 13 years. In 2004 Graham applied for a VSA (New Zealand Volunteer Services Abroad) Assignment and was appointed to Cambodia as a Management Advisor for a local NGO (The Association of the Blind of Cambodia). On working within this NGO he discovered why such a high percentage of Cambodian children became blind when they contracted childhood infections like Mumps, Measles, and Chicken Pox. This was due to an inadequate immune system within their young bodies, because consume mainly rice. (Carbohydrates). These children live with their families in a very poor environment, who cannot afford good or adequate nutritional food.Discovering that 85% of the population was deficient in Protein, Iron, Zinc, Vitamin A and Iodine, he began working with an International NGO, as the General Manager, who were producing UHT soya milk. UHT (Ultra High Treatment) milk is processed at a very high temperature which destroyed a lot of the goodness (vitamins) within the soya milk. When the NGO decided to close the soya operation, Graham was offered the So! brand and some production equipment to purchase, enabling him to build a very small factory to produce fresh pasteurized soya milk. Graham is passionate about child nutrition, wanting each child to have a healthy start in live. Good nutrition also helps the child and their ability to learn at school.
Mil Mean is the Manager of So! Nutritious Co Ltd. He is from Cambodia and started working for soy milk in Hager NGO since 1998 to 2008. Then he had continued to work for producing soy milk at So! Nutritious found by Graham.
Mean was growing up in the Hager foster home program, which is the shelter for orphaned children. He learned about electronic engineer, so Graham invited him to make his career continuing in So! Nutritious. He felt sympathy for children who needed better nutritional food to help fight sickness and infections that was part of living on the street and in slum areas. To build up the immunue system in these children to help fight of malnutrition, and so joined So! Nutritious.