For Lydia Kekeli Aményaglo, life and work are rooted in the intersection of food, culture, advocacy and design. Based in Accra, Ghana, Lydia is the Creative Director of the Ghana Food Movement (GFM), a community-driven initiative working to strengthen Ghana’s food systems, champion local producers and a move back towards indigenous ingredients. She is also the founder of plentyplenty.africa, a regenerative cocoa farm and creative studio dedicated to reshaping how Ghanaians – and the world – understand and value cocoa.
Through education, storytelling and direct collaboration with farmers, Lydia is helping to reclaim the narrative around one of Ghana’s most significant industries, ensuring its cultural and economic power benefits the people who cultivate it, just as much as the people who consume it.
Speaking with her over Zoom, it’s immediately clear that she lives and breathes her work. Her mornings often begin on her bicycle, pedalling through Accra to stay connected to the local community. “The people are where I get inspiration from,” she says, before arriving at the GFM’s hub. On other days, she travels for hours to reach her cocoa farm, meeting growers, inspecting the land, and working side by side with those at the heart of the supply chain.
Having grown up in Germany, passion for food took root in her early twenties after moving to Berlin. She joined a church and began hosting a series of supper clubs – “dinner parties in the park”. “It was amazing,” she recalls. “We’d set up the longest tables; at our biggest one, around 300 people joined. Anyone walking by could sit down and share a meal. I’d always be serving the craziest dishes. That’s when I realised food has always been a thread running through my life. I never want to stop hosting dinner parties.”
Since relocating to Accra full-time in 2020, her work with the GFM has only grown, from cultural campaigns and chef-led events to grassroots projects centred on community and policy change. At the same time, she’s deepening her understanding of West Africa’s agricultural landscape through plentyplenty.africa, pushing the initiative into new creative territory. Life moves fast for Lydia and she wouldn’t have it any other way. Here, she shares what her working days and immersing herself in the communities she serves really looks like...
My Work Is My Anchor... It’s what keeps me going. I actually grew up not liking my skin colour. I tried so hard to be different: I dyed my hair blonde, wore green contact lenses. I felt at war with my Blackness. Everything shifted though when I travelled to African countries and saw the beauty of the continent for myself. Then, in 2017, I went to Ghana with my siblings and my dad for the first time and he took us to the land that had belonged to my grandparents, which he’d been working on throughout my life. We stood together at the highest point (it’s on the side of a mountain) and after a moment of silence, he looked out and said, “One day all of this will be yours.”
Suddenly, everything clicked: I understood what he had been working toward his entire life. All the trips to Ghana, all the money he poured into that land was for us, for our future. Fast forward three years and I knew I needed to build something on that land that created value for Africans.
Cocoa Was The Obvious Place To Start... Because it’s so symbolic. It was brought to Ghana only to be extracted, its economic power never benefiting the people who grow it. I lived on the land alone for six months, learning, dreaming and planning. But I knew I needed community and collaborators. That’s when I found the GFM: people who were already doing this work. They’ve become my family. And that’s how I ended up here in Accra, doing what I do today.
My Day Starts With An Early Wake Up... I’m definitely a morning person. I love having those first couple of hours entirely to myself. I drink water, I journal and I’m very tuned into tracking my cycle. I always light a candle, too. Work is quite flexible, we don’t have a strict 9-5. Half of the week I might work from home or out in the city, and the other half I’m at the kitchen in person for meetings or looking after the space. I normally start the day there by catching up with my creative assistant. He’s very active in the neighbourhood, so together we might head to Kantamanto [market] to source shirts for our next merchandise drop, then return to the kitchen where I’ll check inventory. My actual creative work tends to start once all the talking and collaborative work is done, usually after 5pm, and I’ll work late into the evening, often until 11pm.
If I’m Not Working On GFM, I’m Focused On plentyplenty... It is split between working from home, and travelling out to our cocoa farm. It’s about two hours away – a trotro to the next nearest capital, then a motorbike ride. When I get there, I’ll plan with my uncle, who mainly looks after the farm when I’m not around. We work out how we can set up the space to welcome visiting groups, what we’re going to talk about and how we can involve them in the work that’s happening there. For us, it’s always about creating a deeper connection: how do we engage people in a way that lasts beyond just that one visit?
Sense Of Smell Is A Huge Inspiration For Me... The smells in Accra are really strong because of the humidity, and everything is intensified – sweat, hard work, dust. And with open gutters, you also get the not-so-nice smells. But in my line of work, I’m constantly surrounded by ingredients and food culture, so scent becomes something beautiful too. When I go to our kitchen at GFM, which is a huge part of our education hub, you can practically smell the entire pantry of Ghana.
One of my favourite smells is dawadawa. A lot of people don’t like it because it’s so strong – if you open the container, the whole room fills up! But it has this incredible umami. It’s fermented locust beans, and honestly, it’s like a thousand-times-better version of a stock cube, made locally with no additives. Our chefs go to the market all the time and bring back a lot of ingredients, so our kitchen often smells like the spice stalls.
When lunch or dinner is ready, that’s the best moment: when all those ingredients come together and you can smell the story of the dish. Then there’s the scent of our urban farm: basil, mint, pepper, even tomatoes, which I never realised have such a strong smell! And then my cocoa farm smells, of course, of cocoa; earthy and rich. Plus, the sweet smell of honey, because we keep bees there too.
The Biggest Obstacle With The Farm Is The Journey... Even though it’s only two hours away, the road to get there is terrible. By the time I arrive, I’m covered in dust and completely exhausted before I’ve even started work. So I really have to mentally prepare myself before heading there – it’s never just a casual trip over to the farm.
My Job Feels Like Four Roles In One... The GFM has grown so much. We’re a small team, and I’m still doing everything from creative direction to social media to graphic design. That’s slowly changing, my team recognises that plentyplenty.africa needs more of my energy too, especially because it’s not just a project for me – it feels like a life legacy. So for now, I’m focusing on what I can build from Accra, like our merchandise and the fashion line I’m creating to help raise funds and awareness. Then, when requests come in from people who want to visit the farm, that’s when I shift back and spend more time there. Right now, it feels like plentyplenty.africa is developing in phases: I work from Accra, growing visibility and support.
This Past Year Has Been Overwhelming... I won a Global Citizen Prize, which was wonderful and such an honour, but it also added a new layer of responsibility. What’s really been keeping me grounded is my faith, and having a solid routine, which makes everything feel more manageable. Without one, you end up overthinking every small task: Have I eaten yet? Did I brush my teeth? Those simple things can easily slip when life gets hectic, but having structure helps me take care of the basics so I have more energy for everything else.
I’m lucky to have great friends who keep me accountable, too. I actually have an accountability partner; she’s one of my closest friends and we have regular check-ins where we talk about what we’re going through, personally and professionally. She’s a bit older than me and has already been through a stage with her organisation that I’m currently in, so her perspective helps me stay focused.
I’d Love People To Come And Visit Us... To learn more about cocoa and the reality behind it. As consumers, we really do have a responsibility to be mindful of where our chocolate comes from, and which brands we support. For me, chocolate only truly tastes good when I know that the people behind it are being treated and compensated fairly. So, if you really want to support the movement that plentyplenty.africa is trying to build, it’s all about becoming more conscious in your choices.
