Ahouefa Fantodji

My work directly supports Danone’s mission: “bringing health through food to as many people as possible.” In West Africa, that means developing or reformulating products that are not only nutritious but also accessible — financially and culturally.

Sometimes, that involves tough trade-offs. How do we maintain nutritional integrity while keeping prices affordable for the local population? That’s the challenge we face, and it’s also where I feel we make the most meaningful contribution because knowing that what we do can make a difference in people’s daily lives is incredibly fulfilling.

One recent example is the launch of FanYogo in Nigeria. It’s a fortified product with added vitamins and minerals — something we’d been working on for years. Getting it to market, especially in such a challenging economic environment, was a massive accomplishment.

While it’s still early to measure its long-term impact, the fact that we’ve made this product accessible to more families is already a win.

I would cite the case of FanYogo again in Ghana this time. When people on the street in Accra started buying FanYogo Plain and saying, “Oh, this tastes healthier — we really like it,” that’s when it hit me.

Of course, I also get feedback like “This one doesn’t taste good/tastes different” — but even that matters. It means people care, and what we’re creating is part of their everyday life. That’s powerful.

We integrate health and sustainability from the very beginning. This is what we call “sustainable by design.” That means thinking about the nutritional value, environmental impact, and long-term benefits of a product from the first stages of development.

Right now, one of our top priorities in West Africa is the kids’ portfolio. We're working hard to ensure these products are not only healthy but also developed in a way that considers things like sugar content, packaging, and ingredient sourcing.

I would say you can never know everything.

Ingredient interactions, process parameters, consumer preferences — they don’t always behave how you expect. You might fortify a yogurt with vitamins, and in the final product it’s barely there. Or your minerals blend disappears during trials production. Every project brings surprises and you need to find sustainable solutions before commercial productions. That’s what keeps it interesting — and humbling.

That’s why the projects that marked me did so not because they were perfect, but because I learned so much from them.

At the beginning of my career, I used to think I needed to be 150% sure before committing. But I’ve learned that sometimes you have to move forward even when you’re only 80% certain and then stay 100% committed. That mindset shift has been one of the most powerful learnings of my career.