Our first post: thank you
Dedicated to all those who have believed in the Obà project. Professionals and consumers who have been supporting and encouraging our initiative.

We are pretty much there. The beginning seems so far away in the past but now I am actually here, writing our first post on the Obà website just put online. This blog’s aim is to connect with you, keeping you informed on the product developments, on new recipes and much more. We would like to publish articles about healthy food and posts from all of you willing to share matters on grains, gluten free and sustainable agriculture.
But let’s get back to the actual purpose of this first post. A big thank you, to all of you who have believed in this African ancient grain and in our project to introduce it in Europe. It has been such an obstacle race, not really for the constrains of finding top quality grains, but because Fonio qualifies, based on European regulations, as a Novel Food despite it has been consumed for 5’000 years in Africa.
Nobody knew what Fonio was, either grain or flour, but I was so lucky to meet food and nutrition experts, chefs and consumers who accepted to taste my Fonio. Probably I shouldn’t say it, but at the beginning I was cautious about all of this. I didn’t believe myself, having discovered a sort of “Columbus egg”, an ancient West African grain to lead “innovation” with. Actually, one after another, all feed-backs I got where extremely positive. People loved the grains and the flour proved to be great for bread, bakery and pizza.
I will be talking to you about all incredible talents who have been supporting the project, and they will be engaging with you directly. Today, I would like to thank the first 5 people who I had the pleasure to know:
- Francesca Morandin, food technologist expert in gluten-free baking, who first tried to work the Fonio Obà flour
- Andrea Balsano, based on his extensive background in food multinational companies has developed (and still doing) delicious snacks, with and without gluten
- Marina Carcea, with a lifelong career as food scientific researcher, she was essential to get all Novel Food aspects thorough
- Anna Maria Dal Prà, BeBop Restaurant in Milano, the first one to have some customers tasting Fonio Obà
- Thomas Bortolotti, Raw Chef in Roma, who gave a try to Fonio Obà in his raw vegan recipes
…and Thank you to everyone who has visited our website and that, I hope, will be trying our Fonio Obà.
We really look forward to receiving your thoughts via the social channels. Your feed-back is important to us.