Elijah Amoo Addo is a Ghanaian chef, food stylist, social entrepreneur, TV host. Born in 1991, Addo is the recipient of the 2017 Queens Young Leader Award presented by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace for his contribution towards social development across the commonwealth.
He is also the Founder and Executive Director of the Food for All Africa Programme, which recovers surplus food from supermarkets, restaurants, and other sources in Ghana and distributes it mostly to facilities for children, the elderly, and mentally challenged persons. The organization recovers between $8,000 and $10,000 worth of food annually to support over 5485 beneficiaries across Ghana and it was in 2014 selected as one of the 100 Global Best practices to end hunger and poverty in Ghana by Dubai International Awards for Best practices
Growing up in Ghana and Nigeria, Addo worked his way up from being a kitchen cleaner as a young boy, to becoming a junior sous chef, a sous chef then eventually as head chef at several restaurants in Accra, Ghana. He left full-time work as a chef to start the Food for Africa program in 2012. He was inspired by a mentally-challenged man who recovered food from street vendors and shared it with others in need. The program also runs “SDG 2” (Zero Hunger) crop and livestock farms and stores to foster agricultural employment and distribute rural products in urban centers.
Addo is today a reckoning force in the food and culinary world, as he has been socially committed to collecting leftover food or unwanted food that is close to its use-by date and redistributing it to disadvantaged children in orphanages, hospitals, and lower-income schools. In 2017, he was named amongst the Most Influential Young Africans.
The 31-year-old social entrepreneur holds a certificate in entrepreneurship and management from YALI West Africa and a Leading Change certificate from the University of Cambridge.
