This partnership will support efforts to build the evidence, market understanding and enabling environment needed to unlock the potential of fermented foods for nutrition and public health in Ethiopia.

Sight and Life and Yadam Foundation have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to strengthen collaboration on fermentation and explore how Ethiopia’s rich tradition of fermented foods can contribute more deliberately to better nutrition, public health and resilient food systems.

The MoU was endorsed during the Africa Food Systems Forum 2026 in Kigali, Rwanda, by H.E. Demeke Mekonnen Hassen, Founder and Chairman of Yadam Foundation and Elvis Gakuba, Africa Director at Sight and Life.

The partnership comes as Sight and Life advances its work on the foundations for scaling fermented foods in Ethiopia and Nigeria, moving from the global evidence on fermentation towards country-level research and action.

Building on Ethiopia’s fermentation heritage

Fermentation is deeply rooted in Ethiopia’s food culture, with fermented foods forming an important part of everyday diets and livelihoods. This strong tradition, alongside the country’s nutrition challenges and potential for future scale-up, makes Ethiopia a priority country for Sight and Life’s fermentation work.

While fermentation can improve nutritional quality and food safety, extend shelf life and reduce food spoilage, important evidence and systems gaps remain. The partnership with Yadam Foundation will help ground this work within Ethiopia, bringing together local knowledge, research and national stakeholders to better understand how promising fermented foods can move towards responsible scale.

Moving from evidence to country-level action

The partnership builds on Sight and Life’s earlier work to strengthen the global evidence around fermentation. In 2025, Sight and Life launched its Special Report, Fermentation: An Ancient Solution to Modern Challenges, at the Nutrition for Growth Summit in Paris, with support from the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF). The report helped bring greater attention to the science behind fermentation, the opportunities and barriers to scaling traditional fermented foods, and the need to connect research with policy, markets and implementation.

The next phase is focused on generating the country-level evidence and systems understanding needed to guide future investment and scale-up in Ethiopia and Nigeria. Sight and Life will work with partners to assess priority fermented foods across four areas: research and development, market assessment, regulatory assessment and campaign readiness.

Together, these workstreams will help identify which fermented foods have the greatest potential for nutrition impact, understand viable pathways to market, address regulatory and safety considerations, and inform a roadmap for future scale-up.

From discussion to partnership at AFSF 2026

The signing followed Sight and Life’s high-level Breakthrough Event at the Africa Food Systems Forum, “Fermentation: from Evidence to Scale,” which brought together leaders from government, science, investment and Africa’s food systems community to consider what is needed to unlock the wider potential of fermentation.

H.E. Demeke Mekonnen Hassen, Founder and Chairman of Yadam Foundation and Elvis Gakuba, Africa Director at Sight and Life, during the signing of the MoU at the AFS Forum in Kigali, Rwanda.

During the session, H.E. Demeke highlighted Ethiopia’s longstanding fermentation traditions and the importance of strengthening locally rooted practices through research, policy, regulation and investment.

This partnership provides a platform for Sight and Life and Yadam Foundation to take that conversation forward in Ethiopia.

“Fermented foods are already part of Ethiopia’s diets, culture and communities. This partnership gives us an opportunity to strengthen the research around these foods and better understand how our own knowledge and food traditions can contribute to addressing today’s nutrition and public health challenges,” - H.E. Demeke Mekonnen Hassen, Founder and Chairman of Yadam Foundation.

“Ethiopia has a remarkable fermentation heritage, but there is still much more we can learn about how these foods can contribute to better nutrition and public health. Our partnership with Yadam Foundation gives us an important opportunity to ground this work in the Ethiopian context, bring together the right national actors and build the evidence and enabling environment needed to move promising solutions towards scale,” - Elvis Gakuba, Africa Director at Sight and Life

Building the foundations for scale

For Sight and Life, scaling fermentation means understanding what already works, strengthening it through science and innovation, and creating the conditions for safe, nutritious and locally relevant fermented foods to reach more people.

This work will contribute to a broader effort to generate the scientific, market, regulatory and consumer insights needed to develop a clear roadmap for scaling priority fermented foods.

Through this partnership with Yadam Foundation, Sight and Life will work to ensure that this process remains grounded in Ethiopia’s food systems, institutions and knowledge.

The signing in Kigali marks an important step in turning shared ambition around fermentation into country-level action in Ethiopia