It won’t make headlines in the West, but it matters in the food world: Ghana Food Movement has won the World’s 50 Best Restaurants’ 2026 Champions of Change Award. The announcement came on August 19 and recognizes the youth-led organization’s work on Ghana’s culinary heritage, along with a financial grant to help fund its ongoing programs.
Based in Accra, the organization is run by managing directors Abdallah Smith and Aimée Wallin, with Pauline Lingg leading impact and Lydia Kekeli Amenyaglo leading creative. Its work spans three areas: community building, food education and promoting local food, with one thread running through all of it: giving value back to indigenous ingredients that are losing ground to imports and changing diets. The group says it has already helped more than 250 young people find jobs in the food industry through its training programs.
Two initiatives launched this year show what that looks like on the ground. The Ghana Plate Project is rethinking school canteens: in four pilot schools, about 400 students now eat meals made with fonio, Bambara beans, sorghum, baobab and moringa, with an expansion to 800 students planned by year’s end. Alongside it, the Pathways to Support Climate Resilient Indigenous Food Systems program studies how traditional knowledge and local crops can strengthen food resilience as the climate changes.
“We recognize the team’s exceptional initiatives and the meaningful difference they continue to make in shaping their community,” said Rachael Hogg of The World’s 50 Best. Ghana Food Movement’s Abdallah Smith frames it less as an individual win than a collective one: “farmers, chefs, young food leaders, educators and communities working to reshape Ghana’s food system.” The award kicks off a series of announcements ahead of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2026 ceremony, set for Lima on November 4.