---
title: Portraits of Food Activists
date: 2020-06-23T14:51:00+02:00
author: Salama
canonical_url: "https://choco.com/us/stories/food-activists"
section: Story
---
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# Portraits of Food Activists

## On a mission of changing the food industry for the better

 06/23/2020 

 

 ![ - ](/assets/images/blog/_1xAUTO_crop_center-center_none/food-activist.jpg) 

 

 

 

Among **food activists**, there are some of the most polyvalent figures of the food industry. Their backgrounds go from **chefs**, **farmers**, **educators**, **artists**, and **entrepreneurs**. Here are the profiles of food activists selected by Choco to inspire chefs around the world during 2020.

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 ### Amanny Ahmad

Chef, artist, and writer **Amanny Ahmad** is a NYC-based food activist, plant enthusiast, and passionate cook. Born in Utah to Palestinian immigrants, Ahmad’s work focuses on indigenous culinary traditions with wild foods and on foraging as a method of survival. Ahmad’s artworks also contributed to the study of **Palestinian food culture** and were included in the Palestinian Heirloom Seed Library in Battir. Through her focus on **food and conceptual art** and love for nature, she created her language to communicate the possibility of more conscious and meaningful relationships with people and earth.

### Pierre Thiam

**Pierre Thiam** is a Senegalese NYC-based chef, restaurateur, social entrepreneur, and culinary ambassador of **West African cuisine** in **fine dining restaurants** worldwide. He is the executive chef at award-winning Nok by Alara in Lagos, Nigeria, signature chef of the five-star Pullman Hotel in Dakar, Senegal, as well as the executive chef and co-owner of Teranga in New York City. Founder of **Yolélé Foods** company and author of The Fonio Cookbook (2019), he is an advocate of smallholder farmers of traditional African crops and of cooking diversity.

### Pashon Murray

**Pashon Murray** is an educator and environmental activist at **Detroit Dirt**. The company converts waste into high-quality compost for local urban gardeners and farmers and reduces carbon footprint. With her work around organic waste recovery and reuse, she promotes zero-waste models within the food industry.

### Nikko Masumoto

**Nikko Masumoto** is a 4th generation farmer, artist, and cultural organizer at the Masumoto Family Farm in Fresno, California. She is the co-founder of the Yonsei Memory Project, an inter-generational space for **Japanese American memory keeping**. Her work also includes tours at her family peach-farm as an art experience. She also advocates gender and cultural diversity in the farming world.

 

 

 

 ### Sana Javeri Kadri

**Sana Javeri Kadri** is a former food and culture photographer, now founder and CEO of **Diaspora Co.**, a queer and women of color-led organic turmeric business. Born and raised in Mumbai, India, she is striving for positive change within the Indian farming and supply-chain system through new business models of “**Made in India**”. Her company produces delicious organic spices sustainably and by relying on regenerative agriculture practices.

 

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