Selassie Atadika

Selassie Atadika is a TIME Earth Award-winning chef and global thought leader at the intersection of food, climate resilience, and economic justice—proving that the most sustainable solutions are also the most flavorful. A finalist for the Basque Culinary World Prize, she has been named among The Best Chef Awards’ Top 100 Chefs in the World and honored with La Liste’s New Destination Champion Award. Her work has been featured in BBC, CNN, The Financial Times, and The New York Times, earning international acclaim for revolutionizing African food systems through sustainability, storytelling, and ethical sourcing.

For Atadika, food is identity, memory, politics, and power—a connection shaped by her journey from relocating to the U.S. after the 1981 coup in Ghana to working in humanitarian crises worldwide. This experience fuels her belief that food is not just sustenance but a tool for restoring dignity, fostering resilience, and creating opportunities for sustainable peace.

As the founder of Midunu, a Ghana-based culinary enterprise, she leads the New African Cuisine movement, pioneering a model where culture, community, and cuisine intersect with sustainability and economic empowerment. Through nomadic dining experiences and award-winning Midunu Chocolates, she elevates indigenous ingredients and traditional preservation techniques, creating economic opportunities for smallholder women farmers and producers while reshaping global perceptions of African foodways.

A former humanitarian aid worker with the United Nations, Atadika applies a systems-level approach to food security and climate action. She champions plant-forward diets, regenerative agriculture, and circular food economies, advocating for neglected and underutilized species (NUS) and indigenous knowledge as essential solutions to climate resilience.

A sought-after speaker and MacMillan Fellow at Yale University, she has addressed audiences at global sustainability forums, making the case for African foodways as a cornerstone of climate-resilient food systems. She believes in the power of deliciousness to drive food systems change—proving that sustainability, cultural preservation, and indulgence are not only compatible but essential for the future of food.