It was his own personal experience that motivated Chef Elijah Addo – or the “doctor in the kitchen” as his colleagues call him – to contribute to reducing the problems related to micronutrient deficiencies among school kids in Ghana. Chef Elijah decided to make a difference! This difference started from his own kitchen by cooking meals for kids in schools that do not have access to nutritious and affordable food sources.
He now runs Food for All Africa, a social enterprise that aims to work with businesses to make their supply chain more efficient. Besides this project, he started the Lunch Box School Feeding Initiative to distribute hot food meals on a weekly basis to schools that urgently need them. His initiative involves investing in designing the menus and recruiting cooks to provide delicious and hot meals. Such meals bring joy to thousands of kids across Ghana.
“It took me a career in cooking to be able to take care of myself” – Chef Elijah Addo
Chef Elijah is an avid believer in providing nutritious food that is accessible and affordable for all – to date, almost 6500 school children and 25 schools have benefited from his programme.
Behind this inspiring story is a chef who lost both of his parents at the age of 12. It was in the kitchen where he connected the most with his mother. This place became a sacred area, a refuge, to indulge himself with memories of the past that he holds dear. When his parents died, he decided to go and live with his aunt in Nigeria and find a job to support himself. His first job was as a cleaner in a hotel. He became familiar with how much waste hotels and kitchens generate, and now this knowledge serves as a vision that has led him to his future path.
He is also a keen advocate for using fortified ingredients, to reduce the incidence of malnutrition and micronutrient deficiencies in West Africa. He, like many others, started to become familiar with fortified ingredients through reading about the fortification of salt with iodine in Ghana. Iodine is added to salt to help reduce thyroid complications such as goitres, as well as assisting in healthy pregnancies to reduce neurodevelopmental disorders in newborns.
During his research, Chef Elijah found out that there are many more opportunities to fortify other ingredients. As such, he became a dedicated supporter of investing in fortified rice as a way to improve the nutrition in school feeding programmes for children not just in Ghana, but across Africa. Many countries use rice as a main staple ingredient – by investing in affordable and accessible fortified rice, with nutrients added that are targeting specific micronutrient deficiencies for that country, micronutrient deficiencies could decrease dramatically.
Through the years, Chef Elijah has become a humanitarian chef who advocates for better food for children, for fortified ingredients, for reducing food waste, and also for supply chain improvements – especially in the area of valuing natural resources and reducing waste. Through working with food producers on the ground, he became sympathetic towards the small farmers who suffer the most from the inefficient supply chain that works against them. Amongst other things, he found creative ways to reduce food surpluses and he encouraged small farmers to invest in school feeding programmes. At the end of the day, it’s also their children that benefit from the school feeding programmes!
The Chefs’ Manifesto takes great pleasure in having Chef Elijah as a part of its diverse network of Chefs who not only act as ambassadors to improve our food systems, but who also truly invest their talents, time, and effort to bring about positive change and good food for all.
