When conversations about the growth of plant-based eating in Africa begin, attention often turns to countries where vegan businesses, advocacy organisations and alternative-protein industries are rapidly emerging.
One year later, the conversation moved west.
But Ethiopia offers a different lesson.
There, plant-based eating is not necessarily presented as a new lifestyle or imported idea. For millions of people, it is already deeply connected to culture, religion and everyday food traditions.
At the recent AVA Summit Ghana, Vegan Africa News spoke with two Ethiopian attendees, Meron Sileshi and Salem Yihun, about what their country could teach the rest of Africa about plant-based food.
Their answer was striking: start early, make it normal and build on what already exists.
Plant-based eating as part of everyday life
One of the Ethiopian attendees explained that children are introduced to plant-based foods from an early age. Rather than growing up seeing plant-based food as something unusual, it can simply become part of what families eat. That cultural familiarity matters.
Ethiopian Orthodox fasting traditions have also played an important role. During fasting periods, meat, eggs and dairy are excluded, creating a strong tradition of meals centred on grains, legumes, vegetables and other plant foods. Research on Ethiopian food systems documents multiple fasting periods throughout the year. The result is a food culture in which plant-based meals do not necessarily need to be reinvented to appeal to people. They already belong.
The lesson for the rest of Africa
The Ethiopian experience raises an important question for the wider African plant-based movement: What if the answer isn’t to convince Africans to adopt something new, but to help them rediscover what already exists?
Across Africa, traditional cuisines contain countless dishes built around grains, beans, vegetables, fruits, tubers and other plant foods. Yet the word vegan can sometimes make plant-based eating sound foreign or disconnected from local culture. The Ethiopian example suggests another approach. Instead of beginning with the label, advocates could begin with food, culture and familiarity.
Culture before labels
The Ethiopian attendees also pointed to religion and community as powerful tools for normalising plant-based eating. This may be particularly relevant in Africa, where food is deeply connected to identity, family and tradition. Rather than asking communities to abandon their food culture, the challenge could be to identify the plant-based traditions already embedded within it, and build from there.
That doesn’t mean Ethiopia has solved every challenge. The speakers themselves pointed to gaps in innovation, value addition and plant-based product development. But perhaps that is precisely where the opportunity lies.
Africa doesn’t have to copy the West
The global plant-based movement often comes with products, terminology and strategies developed in Europe and North America. Africa can learn from those markets without simply reproducing them. Ethiopia offers a different possibility: build the future from the culture that already exists. The question for Ghana, Nigeria and other African countries may therefore not be: “How do we make Africans vegan?”
It could be: “What is already plant-based in our culture and how can we make more of it?”
That shift could turn African food heritage from something the plant-based movement has to explain into one of its greatest strengths.
Watch the conversation
In the video above, two Ethiopian advocates who attended AVA Summit Ghana share their perspectives on why Ethiopia has been able to integrate plant-based eating into everyday life, and what the rest of Africa could learn from it.