Yonas Alemu, founder of the food company Lovegrass Ethiopia, has navigated a remarkable path – from growing up in rural Ethiopia, to working as an investment banker in London, and ultimately returning to his homeland to start a business.
In a recent interview with How we made it in Africa, Yonas reflected on his upbringing in a farming community in Ethiopia, where some of his earliest memories involve waking up before dawn to help in the teff fields. Teff, a tiny grass seed native to Ethiopia, is among the world’s oldest cultivated crops, domesticated between 6,000 and 4,000 BC. For millennia, Ethiopians have used teff flour to make injera, a flat, spongy sourdough bread that is a staple in their diet. Celebrated as a superfood, teff is gluten-free and rich in nutrients such as iron, magnesium, manganese, calcium, zinc, and vitamins B and C. Even Ethiopian elite runner Haile Gebrselassie has credited teff as a factor in his athletic success.
In Yonas’s village, education was available only up to grade eight, after which many children returned to household chores and farming. However, Yonas’s parents were determined that all their children receive a proper education. To continue his studies, Yonas had to walk 12 kilometres to a nearby town. After a year of this arduous commute, his brother, who had established a business in Addis Ababa, took him to the capital, where Yonas completed his high school education.
No Comment Found.