--- title: "Dr. Susianto Tseng - IVU - International Vegetarian Union" description: "Dr Susianto Tseng, Chair of the International Vegetarian Union 2015–2018 and the first Indonesian to lead it: public health nutritionist, co-founder of the Indonesia Vegetarian Society, founder of SEAVU and of the World Vegan Organisation, and organiser of the 39th IVU World Vegetarian Congress in J" url: "https://ivu.org/international-vegetarian-union/resources/biographies/6768-dr-susianto-tseng.html" date: "2026-11-06T00:02:54+00:00" language: "en-GB" --- ![Dr Susianto Tseng, former Chair of the International Vegetarian Union](https://ivu.org/images/people/susianto-tseng-former-ivu-chair2.jpg) Dr Susianto TsengBiography · IVU# Susianto Tseng Born 1 October 1967, Indonesia · IVU regional coordinator for Asia-Pacific, 2006–2018 · Chair of the IVU, 2015–2018 · Founder of the World Vegan OrganisationA public health nutritionist who turned the Indonesian vegetarian movement into one of the largest in the world, brought the IVU World Vegetarian Congress to Southeast Asia for the first time, and then led the organisation that had sent it there. **1988**Vegetarian since **60,000**IVS members by 2007 **2010**The Jakarta World Congress **2015–18**Chair of IVU Dr Susianto Tseng built his part of the vegetarian movement the way a scientist builds an argument: evidence first, institutions second, and an audience assembled rather than assumed. He is a nutritionist by training, with a doctorate from the Faculty of Public Health at the University of Indonesia awarded *summa cum laude*, and almost everything he has done since has involved putting a laboratory result, a recipe or a membership list in front of people who did not expect to be persuaded. He led the Indonesia Vegetarian Society from 1998 to 2015, and in that time it grew from around five thousand members to some sixty thousand — a figure he reported in 2007, by which point Indonesia had become, in the words of IVU’s own manager, home to one of the largest vegetarian societies anywhere. ## Chemistry, and then nutrition He was born on 1 October 1967 and went to Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta to read chemistry. The decision that organised the rest of his life was taken in a laboratory, in his second year, during food analysis: he ran the tests on meat himself and did not like what the results said. “I became vegetarian in my second year of college,” he told *The Jakarta Post* years later. To IVU, in 2008, he put it in his own professional register: he is a chemist by training, he studied food science, he saw the weight of disease associated with eating meat, and when he changed his diet he began to feel healthier. That was 1988, and he was twenty — a decade before he would run any organisation. The science came after the diet rather than before it: a master’s in public health nutrition at the University of Indonesia, with a thesis on the nutritional status of Indonesian vegetarian children, and then the doctorate in the same faculty, awarded *summa cum laude*. For a time he also ran a vegan nutrition clinic in Jakarta, and for years the movement was the thing he did outside a day job as country manager for a scientific instruments company. The household changed around him rather than the other way round. His mother and his grandmother had eaten vegetarian meals twice a month, for religious reasons, long before he stopped eating meat; after he did, his mother became a full-time vegetarian too. When he turned vegan in 2006 the rest of the family followed, his wife included. His first child has been vegan since the age of ten, and his second, Vegania Paramita, was born to vegan parents — in 2011, with the baby eleven months old, he called her his greatest achievement so far. “I was destined to be a vegan.” Susianto Tseng — born on 1 October, World Vegetarian Day. The Jakarta Post, 2011 His academic work went looking for the weakest point in the vegetarian case and tried to measure it. For his doctoral research he studied the vitamin B12 content of tempeh, the fermented soy food that is a staple of Indonesian cooking, and found that tempeh made by traditional Indonesian methods could carry more B12 than versions produced in the West, because the fermentation is not the same process. His own conclusion was cautious — tempeh on its own is not a reliable B12 source — and that caution is the point: the finding was interesting precisely because he reported its limits. The same instinct runs through his public work. He lectures at the graduate school of public health at STIKES Kuningan and is a guest lecturer on the MSc in nutrition at SEAMEO–FKUI; he is nutrition consultant to the Royal Progress Hospital in Jakarta and the Indonesian representative consultant for PerkinElmer Singapore. He has spoken in some fifteen countries across Asia, Europe, Australia and the Americas — enough of it on one subject that the Indonesian press took to calling him the “tempeh lecturer”. And he has written a shelf of books in Indonesian aimed squarely at the practical questions people actually ask. - *Healthy Vegetarian Diet* - *The Miracle of Vegan* - *Vegan Nutrition for Pregnancy* - *Vegan Nutrition for Children* - *The Miracle of Tempe* - *Vegan is Easy* - *Tempted by Tempeh* ## Building the Indonesian movement The Indonesia Vegetarian Society began in 1998, when he and a handful of vegetarian friends concluded that the vegetarians of Indonesia needed somewhere to be counted. They held their first meeting that year at an organic farm outside Jakarta. He had found IVU through a web search, and the new society affiliated to it almost immediately — which is how a national movement and its international membership started on the same day. He led it for seventeen years. The method he has described is deliberately unglamorous and relentlessly public: scientific talks and workshops in schools and universities, partnerships with government bodies, and programmes in shopping malls — the place where people who are not looking for a vegetarian society can nonetheless be found. In 2006 — the year he became vegan himself — he co-founded the Vegan Society of Indonesia, which he still leads, drawing the distinction between vegetarian and vegan into the open at a time when few organisations in the region had done so. The society and the personal decision arrived together, which is characteristic: he has tended to build the institution at the moment he takes the step. When he stepped down from the presidency of IVS in 2015 he did not leave: he became its secretary-general, which is the post where the files are kept. 1998 – 2015 Indonesia Vegetarian Society Head of the society for seventeen years, through the growth that made it one of the largest vegetarian organisations in the world. Secretary-general since 2015. 2006 — Vegan Society of Indonesia Co-founder and, to this day, its president — a specifically vegan organisation built alongside the vegetarian one rather than in place of it. 2011 — International Tempe Foundation President of the foundation that promotes tempeh as a nutritious and sustainable protein — the subject of his doctoral research turned into an institution. ## Asia organises itself He became IVU’s regional coordinator for Asia-Pacific in 2006, taking over from the retiring Jashu Shah at the [37th IVU World Vegetarian Congress in Goa](https://ivu.org/hv-congress-2006-congress-2006-index.html), and he held the post for about twelve years — through the Jakarta congress, through his own chairmanship, and through a full re-election of the regional representatives in June 2017. It is the post from which the scattered national societies of the region were connected to the global organisation, and it kept him inside IVU’s governance without interruption until 2018. He did not stop at coordinating what existed. In 2007 he founded the South East Asia Vegetarian Union, and from 2013 to 2015 he was president of the Asia Pacific Vegetarian Union — two structures that gave the region somewhere to meet that was not Europe. 2007 South East Asia Vegetarian Union Founded by him, to give the vegetarian societies of Southeast Asia a regional body of their own. 2013 – 2015 Asia Pacific Vegetarian Union President of the continental union, in the years immediately before he was elected to chair IVU itself. ## Jakarta, 2010 In October 2010 the [**39th IVU World Vegetarian Congress**](https://ivu.org/international-vegetarian-union/resources/biographies/3562-congress-2010-index.html) was held in Indonesia, the first time the congress had come to the country. He chaired the organising committee. It ran at the Jakarta International Expo in Kemayoran from 1 to 5 October, with a [second leg in Bali](https://ivu.org/john-davis/145-bali-beautiful.html) from 7 to 9 October, and it was built as two events at once: a congress for delegates from twenty countries, and a public food exposition with some seventy exhibitors, thirty of them selling food, aimed at the eight thousand visitors the committee was expecting. The Indonesian government was part of it rather than adjacent to it — the Ministry of Culture and Tourism funded the opening ceremony and the gala dinner, and the Health Ministry’s director of community nutrition spoke in support. There were seminars, cultural programmes and a children’s art competition. “One of the biggest vegetarian societies in world.” John Davis, IVU manager, on Indonesia — Jakarta, October 2010 IVU would come to regard the Jakarta congress as one of the best in its history. For the organisation it was also a demonstration: the centre of gravity of the vegetarian world was no longer automatically in the north. ## Chair of IVU In 2015 he was elected to chair the International Vegetarian Union, and he held the post until 2018 — the first Indonesian to lead an organisation founded in 1908. By then he had been inside its governance for nine years, as regional coordinator and as a member of the International Council, and the chairmanship extended what he had been doing regionally to the whole organisation: connecting member societies that had often worked in isolation, and pushing the growth of vegetarian networks in places where the movement was young and under-resourced. His term ran the World Vegfest series and the cooperation between the continental unions, and it continued the long shift of IVU’s attention towards Asia — the shift his own career had largely caused. In 2018 the chairmanship passed back to Marly Winckler of Brazil. ## A second organisation In 2018, the year his IVU chairmanship ended, he founded the **World Vegan Organisation** and became its first president — an international network for vegan communities, built on the same model he had used twice before in Asia: create the body, then give it a conference to hold. The WVO ran its 15th international conference and vegan festival in Denpasar, Bali, in October 2025, alongside the Indonesia Vegetarian Society and the Vegan Society of Indonesia. He is still its president, and still president of the Vegan Society of Indonesia. 2018 — World Vegan Organisation Founder and first president. Its international conference and vegan festival reached its fifteenth edition in Bali in October 2025. Nutrition Doctor of Nutrition Faculty of Public Health, University of Indonesia, *summa cum laude*, with doctoral research on the vitamin B12 content of Indonesian tempeh. ## Timeline 1967Born on **1 October**, in Indonesia. 1988Becomes **vegetarian**, at twenty, while studying chemistry at Gadjah Mada University. 1998Helps found the **Indonesia Vegetarian Society** at a meeting on an organic farm outside Jakarta, and affiliates it to IVU; leads it for the next seventeen years. 2006Becomes **vegan**, and co-founds the **Vegan Society of Indonesia**, which he still leads; at the 37th IVU World Vegetarian Congress in Goa he takes over as [**IVU regional coordinator for Asia-Pacific**](https://ivu.org/asia-pacific-region.html). 2007Founds the **South East Asia Vegetarian Union**; reports IVS membership at around sixty thousand. 2008IVU publishes a long interview with him in January, in which he gives the account of the laboratory and of his family. 2010Chairs the organising committee of the [**39th IVU World Vegetarian Congress**](https://ivu.org/home/285-39th-ivu-world-vegetarian-congress-2010-jakarta-bali-indonesia.html) in Jakarta and Bali — the first held in Indonesia. 2011Receives his **doctorate** for the research on tempeh, completed in about two and a half years; becomes president of the **International Tempe Foundation**. 2013–15President of the **Asia Pacific Vegetarian Union**. 2015Elected **Chair of the International Vegetarian Union**; hands the IVS presidency on and becomes its secretary-general. 2017Re-elected **regional representative** in a full renewal of IVU’s regional posts. 2018Ends his term as chair of IVU; founds the **World Vegan Organisation** and becomes its first president. 2025The WVO holds its **15th international conference** and vegan festival in Bali. ## Legacy There is a particular kind of contribution that is easy to miss because it looks like infrastructure. Dr Susianto Tseng founded or led a national vegetarian society, a national vegan society, a subregional union, a continental union, a global vegan organisation and a foundation for a single food — and each of them outlived the moment that produced it. When the IVU congress came to Jakarta in 2010 it did not arrive in a country where the movement had to be explained from first principles; it arrived in one of the largest vegetarian communities on earth, with government ministries helping to pay for the opening night. That he is a nutritionist is not incidental to any of it. The movement he built in Indonesia argues in the register that hospitals, ministries and universities accept, and it does so because the man leading it had the doctorate to argue in it. [International Council](https://ivu.org/international-vegetarian-union/resources/biographies/4387-members-council-susianto-tseng.html) [Biographies](https://ivu.org/international-vegetarian-union/resources/biographies.html) This biography draws on IVU’s own archive, including the [interview it published with him in January 2008](https://ivu.org/hv-news-periodicals-news-online-interviews-index.html); on contemporary reporting of the [39th IVU World Vegetarian Congress ](https://ivu.org/home/285-39th-ivu-world-vegetarian-congress-2010-jakarta-bali-indonesia.html)and on Ika Krismantari’s profile of him in The Jakarta Post, 21 March 2011; and on his own account of his roles as presented in academic seminars. Dates of office in Indonesian and regional organisations are as he records them. - Hits: 148 ## Schema ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "Organization", "@id": "https://ivu.org/#organization", "name": "International Vegetarian Union", "alternateName": "IVU", "url": "https://ivu.org/", "foundingDate": "1908" }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://ivu.org/#website", "url": "https://ivu.org/", "name": "International Vegetarian Union", "publisher": { "@id": "https://ivu.org/#organization" }, "inLanguage": "en" }, { "@type": "Person", "@id": "https://ivu.org/#susianto-tseng", "name": "Susianto Tseng", "givenName": "Susianto", "familyName": "Tseng", "honorificPrefix": "Dr", "gender": "Male", "birthDate": "1967-10-01", "jobTitle": "Founder and President, World Vegan Organisation", "description": "Indonesian public health nutritionist and vegetarian movement leader. Chair of the International Vegetarian Union from 2015 to 2018, the first Indonesian to lead the organisation, and IVU regional coordinator for East and Southeast Asia and Oceania from at least 2008. Co-founder of the Indonesia Vegetarian Society in 1998 and its head until 2015, co-founder and president of the Vegan Society of Indonesia, founder of the South East Asia Vegetarian Union (2007), president of the Asia Pacific Vegetarian Union (2013-2015) and founder-president of the World Vegan Organisation (2018). He chaired the organising committee of the 39th IVU World Vegetarian Congress, held in Jakarta and Bali in 2010. Vegetarian since 1988 and vegan since 2006. Doctorate in public health nutrition from the University of Indonesia, summa cum laude, with doctoral research on the vitamin B12 content of tempeh.", "nationality": { "@type": "Country", "name": "Indonesia" }, "homeLocation": { "@type": "Place", "name": "Jakarta", "address": { "@type": "PostalAddress", "addressLocality": "Jakarta", "addressCountry": "ID" } }, "knowsLanguage": [ "id", "en" ], "knowsAbout": [ "public health nutrition", "vegetarian nutrition", "vegan nutrition", "vitamin B12", "tempeh", "fermented soy foods", "vegetarianism", "veganism", "food science", "vegetarian movement organisation in Asia" ], "alumniOf": [ { "@type": "CollegeOrUniversity", "name": "Universitas Gadjah Mada", "alternateName": "Gadjah Mada University" }, { "@type": "CollegeOrUniversity", "name": "Universitas Indonesia", "alternateName": "University of Indonesia" } ], "url": "https://ivu.org/international-vegetarian-union/resources/biographies/6768-dr-susianto-tseng.html", "mainEntityOfPage": "https://ivu.org/international-vegetarian-union/resources/biographies/6768-dr-susianto-tseng.html", "subjectOf": [ "https://ivu.org/news/online/interviews/susianto.html", "https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2011/03/21/born-be-a-vegan" ], "affiliation": [ { "@id": "https://ivu.org/#organization" }, { "@id": "https://ivu.org/#indonesia-vegetarian-society" }, { "@id": "https://ivu.org/#vegan-society-of-indonesia" }, { "@id": "https://ivu.org/#world-vegan-organisation" } ], "memberOf": { "@type": "OrganizationRole", "roleName": "Regional Coordinator for East and Southeast Asia and Oceania", "startDate": "2008", "memberOf": { "@id": "https://ivu.org/#organization" } }, "hasOccupation": [ { "@type": "Occupation", "name": "Public health nutritionist", "description": "Doctorate in public health nutrition, Faculty of Public Health, University of Indonesia, awarded summa cum laude; first degree in chemistry from Universitas Gadjah Mada." }, { "@type": "Role", "roleName": "Chair, International Vegetarian Union", "startDate": "2015", "endDate": "2018" }, { "@type": "Role", "roleName": "Regional Coordinator for East and Southeast Asia and Oceania, International Vegetarian Union", "startDate": "2008" }, { "@type": "Role", "roleName": "President, Asia Pacific Vegetarian Union", "startDate": "2013", "endDate": "2015" }, { "@type": "Role", "roleName": "Head of the Indonesia Vegetarian Society", "startDate": "1998", "endDate": "2015" }, { "@type": "Role", "roleName": "Secretary General, Indonesia Vegetarian Society", "startDate": "2015" }, { "@type": "Role", "roleName": "President, Vegan Society of Indonesia", "startDate": "2006" }, { "@type": "Role", "roleName": "President, International Tempe Foundation", "startDate": "2011" }, { "@type": "Role", "roleName": "Founder and President, World Vegan Organisation", "startDate": "2018" }, { "@type": "Role", "roleName": "Lecturer, Graduate School of Public Health, STIKES Kuningan" }, { "@type": "Role", "roleName": "Guest lecturer, MSc in Nutrition, SEAMEO-FKUI" }, { "@type": "Role", "roleName": "Nutrition consultant, Royal Progress Hospital, Jakarta" } ], "author": [ { "@id": "https://ivu.org/#the-miracle-of-vegan" }, { "@id": "https://ivu.org/#the-miracle-of-tempe" } ] }, { "@type": "Organization", "@id": "https://ivu.org/#indonesia-vegetarian-society", "name": "Indonesia Vegetarian Society", "alternateName": "IVS", "foundingDate": "1998", "founder": { "@id": "https://ivu.org/#susianto-tseng" }, "memberOf": { "@id": "https://ivu.org/#organization" }, "description": "Indonesian national vegetarian organisation, founded in 1998 at a meeting on an organic farm outside Jakarta and affiliated to IVU from the start. Susianto Tseng led it until 2015 and has been its secretary general since." }, { "@type": "Organization", "@id": "https://ivu.org/#vegan-society-of-indonesia", "name": "Vegan Society of Indonesia", "alternateName": "VSI", "foundingDate": "2006", "founder": { "@id": "https://ivu.org/#susianto-tseng" }, "description": "Indonesian vegan organisation co-founded by Susianto Tseng in 2006, the year he became vegan himself. He remains its president." }, { "@type": "Organization", "@id": "https://ivu.org/#seavu", "name": "South East Asia Vegetarian Union", "alternateName": "SEAVU", "foundingDate": "2007", "founder": { "@id": "https://ivu.org/#susianto-tseng" }, "description": "Subregional union of vegetarian societies in Southeast Asia, founded by Susianto Tseng in 2007." }, { "@type": "Organization", "@id": "https://ivu.org/#apvu", "name": "Asia Pacific Vegetarian Union", "alternateName": "APVU", "description": "Continental union of vegetarian societies in Asia and the Pacific. Susianto Tseng was its president from 2013 to 2015." }, { "@type": "Organization", "@id": "https://ivu.org/#world-vegan-organisation", "name": "World Vegan Organisation", "alternateName": "WVO", "foundingDate": "2018", "founder": { "@id": "https://ivu.org/#susianto-tseng" }, "description": "International network of vegan organisations founded by Susianto Tseng in 2018, which he still leads as president. Its international conference and vegan festival reached its fifteenth edition in Bali in October 2025." }, { "@type": "Organization", "@id": "https://ivu.org/#international-tempe-foundation", "name": "International Tempe Foundation", "alternateName": "ITF", "description": "Foundation promoting tempeh as a nutritious and sustainable protein source. Susianto Tseng has been its president since 2011." }, { "@type": "Event", "@id": "https://ivu.org/#congress-2010", "name": "39th IVU World Vegetarian Congress", "startDate": "2010-10-01", "endDate": "2010-10-09", "eventStatus": "https://schema.org/EventScheduled", "eventAttendanceMode": "https://schema.org/OfflineEventAttendanceMode", "location": { "@type": "Place", "name": "Jakarta International Expo, Kemayoran", "address": { "@type": "PostalAddress", "addressLocality": "Jakarta", "addressCountry": "ID" } }, "organizer": { "@id": "https://ivu.org/#susianto-tseng" }, "sponsor": { "@id": "https://ivu.org/#organization" }, "description": "The first IVU World Vegetarian Congress held in Indonesia, with delegates from twenty countries, a public food exposition of some seventy exhibitors in Jakarta from 1 to 5 October 2010 and a second leg in Bali from 7 to 9 October. Susianto Tseng chaired the organising committee; the Indonesian Ministry of Culture and Tourism funded the opening ceremony and gala dinner." }, { "@type": "Book", "@id": "https://ivu.org/#the-miracle-of-vegan", "name": "The Miracle of Vegan", "inLanguage": "id", "author": { "@id": "https://ivu.org/#susianto-tseng" }, "description": "Indonesian-language book on vegan nutrition and health by Susianto Tseng." }, { "@type": "Book", "@id": "https://ivu.org/#the-miracle-of-tempe", "name": "The Miracle of Tempe", "inLanguage": "id", "author": { "@id": "https://ivu.org/#susianto-tseng" }, "description": "Indonesian-language book on tempeh, drawn from his doctoral research on its nutritional composition." }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://ivu.org/international-vegetarian-union/resources/biographies/6768-dr-susianto-tseng.html", "url": "https://ivu.org/international-vegetarian-union/resources/biographies/6768-dr-susianto-tseng.html", "name": "Dr Susianto Tseng - Biography", "inLanguage": "en", "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://ivu.org/#susianto-tseng" }, "about": { "@id": "https://ivu.org/#susianto-tseng" }, "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://ivu.org/#website" }, "publisher": { "@id": "https://ivu.org/#organization" }, "significantLink": "https://ivu.org/international-vegetarian-union/resources/biographies.html" } ] } ``` ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://ivu.org" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "IVU", "item": "https://ivu.org/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Resources", "item": "https://ivu.org/international-vegetarian-union/resources.html" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "Biographies", "item": "https://ivu.org/international-vegetarian-union/resources/biographies.html" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 5, "name": "Dr. Susianto Tseng", "item": "https://ivu.org/international-vegetarian-union/resources/biographies/6768-dr-susianto-tseng.html" } ] } ``` ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "Article", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://ivu.org/international-vegetarian-union/resources/biographies/6768-dr-susianto-tseng.html" }, "headline": "Dr. Susianto Tseng", "description": "Dr Susianto Tseng, Chair of the International Vegetarian Union 2015–2018 and the first Indonesian to lead it: public health nutritionist, co-founder of the Indonesia Vegetarian Society, founder of SEAVU and of the World Vegan Organisation, and organiser of the 39th IVU World Vegetarian Congress in J", "image": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://ivu.org/images/people/susianto-tseng-former-ivu-chair2.jpg" }, "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "International Vegetarian Union", "logo": { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://ivu.org/images/logos/logo-ivu-tranparent-background.png" } }, "author": { "@type": "Person", "name": "Alex Fernandes", "url": "https://ivu.org/international-council.html" }, "datePublished": "2026-10-23T00:25:57+00:00", "dateCreated": "2026-10-23T00:25:57+00:00", "dateModified": "2026-10-28T18:47:45+00:00" } ```