Reed-Diawuoh MBA ’20 is the founder and CEO of GRIA Food Company, which partners with companies that ethically source and process food in West Africa to support local food economies and help communities in the region more broadly.
“I wanted to get my hands dirty and start my own business that contributed to improving agricultural development in West Africa,” Reed-Diawuoh says.
He says MIT Sloan’s Sustainability Business Lab offered particularly valuable lessons for how to structure his business.
We went through this over the course of a thorough three-month review.”After importing cashew kernels, GRIA flavors and packages them at a production facility in Boston.
“It’s absolutely critical that, if we’re sourcing produce in markets like the U.S. from places like West Africa, we’re hyper-focused on doing it in an ethical manner,” Reed-Diawuoh says.

Uplifting West African communities, one cashew at a time