Cameroon | Nutrition of traditional African foods

2026 Top Agri-food Pioneers: Gilbert Mbeh

Gilbert Mbeh, founder and chief technology officer of PushNcare, is solving a critical challenge in global food systems: the cultural data void. Currently, over 90% of traditional African foods are missing from mainstream nutritional databases, leaving 1.5 billion people clinically invisible when facing diet-related, non-communicable diseases. To solve this, Mbeh spearheaded the development of the world’s first Nutritional Knowledge Graph, meticulously codifying over 60,000 traditional African dishes and ingredients. Through PushNcare, he successfully merged ancestral food heritage with cutting-edge AI and WHO clinical dietary standards. Mbeh has mobilized an active network of over 200 registered dietitians across 18 countries, providing them with a platform to deliver culturally accurate, science-driven nutritional care at a global scale. PushNcare also integrates climate action, dedicating a portion of every transaction to carbon removal. Mbeh’s pioneering work makes locally grounded food systems globally scalable and medically actionable.