A Culinary Arts Programme under the Creative Africa Nexus Initiative (CANEX) has been launched in Cairo by The African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank)
The CANEX Africa Gastronomy & Culinary Arts Programme kicked off during the third IATF2023, the latest branch of the CANEX programme. It featured nine famous chefs from all over Africa and the Caribbean, giving masterclasses, showing off their skills, and chatting with culinary pros.
The first meeting of the programme ended with a show-and-tell about the different types of jollof rice that are popular in Nigeria, Ghana, and Senegal. Prof. Oramah said that the programme will help focus continental efforts on local food production, which will help keep food safe, lower prices and imports, and make sure that external shocks don’t affect Africa’s food supply chain.
He described the programme as an opportunity for the promotion of African cuisine to develop trade and local food value chain through promotion of local foods, highlight their superior health benefits to local and regional communities and support local restauranteurs and entrepreneurs to upgrade the dining experience through skills development and capacity building.
The programme would also improve access to finance to help build sector infrastructure, such as restaurants, franchises and packaged goods production plants, to develop the local food value chains and increase employment opportunities.
The launch featured a live demonstration and conversation with the Afreximbank President and Dr. Pamela Coke-Hamilton, Executive Director, International Trade Center, tracing the African food journey and its influence on food culture in the Caribbean, the Americas and globally.
The programme which was developed by African Food Changemakers had participating chefs Davisha Burrowes, Development Chef, Yolk Brands, Barbados; Christian Abegan, CEO Abegan & Co, Cameroon; Natasha de Bourg, President, Trinidad Culinary Limited, and Chef Stone of Red Dish Chronicles, Nigeria.
Prof. Oramah said that the programme would develop an enabling ecosystem from farm to table and would address issues such as food sustainability, GMOs, local farming, the business of franchising and the art of African cuisine.
Afreximbank introduced its African Gastronomy Development Framework to finance the development and expansion of food service market infrastructure, support production of local packaged goods and other value-add products and facilitate training and capacity development of African chefs and sous chef, food technologists, nutritionists, food safety specialist, etc.
