‘Kemi Atijosan, MBA, MIH, FRSA is an award-winning serial entrepreneur, a passionate foodie, a dynamic leader, and food services, consultant. She is the Founder, Managing Director, and Principal Consultant of Eagle Solutions Services Limited (ESSL), a consultancy company that uses the power of food to transform the lives of children, families, and their communities. ESSL are experts in providing support services management, consultancy, procurement, and brokerage service to educational establishments, local authorities, and not-for-profit organisations.
Kemi is also the Co-creator of the award-winning Jolamy Avarah Flour, derived from cassava to provide a gluten-free, diabetic-friendly carbohydrate “swallow” alternative to the traditional African Fufu and also provide for the needs of gluten intolerant population. For Kemi, activism has been a consistent and driving factor in her life’s work. Her enthusiasm for healthy food, within the framework of food sovereignty, justice and equity led to her co. founding the African and Caribbean Heritage Food Network Organisation in 2020 to champion the cause of African heritage peoples in the UK to have access to culturally appropriate food.
Before setting up her consultancy company, Kemi worked in public sector catering for over 25 years and has a history of innovating and creating programmes to better serve local communities. She has undertaken a range of consultancy work in procurement, food service management, nutrition, and food hygiene training, contract monitoring, and diversity issues for local authorities, individual Schools, and organisations in various London Boroughs and nationally. Spanning the NHS, Local authority services, and the education sector, Kemi has pioneered several innovative service partnerships.
Kemi established the very first Caribbean Meals on Wheels services in Lambeth and the African, Turkish Cypriot, Jewish and Asian Meals on Wheels services in Hackney.
Kemi was also one of the pioneering ethnic minority school governors in London serving as a governor for 12 years including 4 years as chair. During that time, she created, implemented, and executed several transformative school policies directly related to staff recruitment and pupil exclusion
Kemi established Latimer Educational Services in 1988, an organisation that worked with ethnic minorities providing advice and counselling on education and parenting including a supplementary Saturday school where she taught Yoruba language and cultural classes.
Kemi has won awards for her Menu design processes for schools, and also for creating the Jolamy Avarah Flour using traditional recipes to process cassava. She also won the Be Mogul award in 2018 as an entrepreneur. She is a current member of the London Food Board since 2017, an advisory board on Food Strategy for the Mayor of London.
Apart from business activities, Kemi loves adventure and believes in giving back to her community. In 2015, she climbed Mount Kilimanjaro to raise funds for charity, and in 2018 she set up a charity to provide interest-free business loans to women in her community in Nigeria. Kemi is a Christian, married with 4 successful children, 5 grandchildren, and a very active member of her local church.
