Iyin Akinlabi-Oladimeji

Iyin Akinlabi-Oladimeji is the founder of Luji's Chocolate, a premium chocolate brand that brings cocoa production back to West Africa. Before launching Luji's, she worked as a Technology Consultant and Customer Success Manager based in Washington, DC.

Luji's Chocolate was founded in 2022 with a simple but powerful idea: chocolate should be made where cacao is grown. The company produces its chocolate entirely in Lagos, Nigeria, using cocoa sourced directly from West African smallholder farmers. Every bar purchased comes with cocoa seedlings delivered back to farming communities, closing the loop between consumer and grower.

Akinlabi-Oladimeji has spoken openly about the disconnect between West Africa's role as the source of most of the world's cocoa and its near absence from the chocolate manufacturing map. Her mission with Luji's is to shift that dynamic, creating better-paying local jobs and putting West African chocolate on the global map.

In 2024, Luji's Chocolate was named a finalist in the prestigious Black Ambition competition, founded by Pharrell Williams to support Black and Latinx entrepreneurs. The brand has since announced a retail launch in the United States, bringing Nigerian-made chocolate to American consumers for the first time. Luji's products include unique flavor combinations like Spicy Suya and Ginger Plantain Crunch, drawing on West African ingredients for a taste profile you won't find at the grocery store.