Finding Resilience in a Time of Uncertainty

In 2018, I became the first Certified Food Scientist (CFS) in my home country of Sudan. Today, I am a refugee, one of the millions of faces behind the statistics.

Cooking has always been a joy for me. As a teen, I would wait eagerly for my cousin, who was a chef, to provide me with a recipe, and I would immediately try it.

My career path did not start in the food industry, even though it was my passion. I received my bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering in Sudan, but after working in the oil and gas industry for three years, I felt the need to shift my career to the food industry. I pursued a master’s degree in food safety and control before joining DAL Food as a food research scientist. Working in the food industry was returning to my lifelong passion of creating food. I still get a feeling of excitement when I launch a new product.

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Joining IFT was a career goal of mine, and I attended my first annual event in 2017 in Las Vegas. When I decided to apply for the CFS exam in 2018, no exam center was available in my country. I saved five months’ salary to fly from Sudan to New Jersey for the exam. I knew the significance of this step in my career development, and I was very proud to become the first Certified Food Scientist in Sudan. 

By the end of 2019, after seven years of corporate work, I planned to leave DAL Food, the largest food company in Sudan, and establish a private product development lab to support startups and small enterprises. I knew that Sudan, as a country, is full of agricultural potential, capable of more than just exporting ingredients. Unfortunately, the financial, political, and security situation in the country was unstable. And as the global pandemic hit, I was affected due to the loss of my dad. The time simply wasn’t right to enter a new venture.

In 2021, I resigned my corporate job and joined Solar Foods, a company that uses solar energy to produce dried food products, which are a great solution for supply chain issues in Sudan because they reduce waste and increase food availability at a reasonable cost. Our products included Thai chili, dried molokhiya, and dried tomatoes. The business was just starting to get off the ground when uncertainty struck once again.

Waking to the sound of machine guns on the morning of April 15, 2023, was the most terrifying event in my life. It was the day when the armed conflict started in Khartoum (less than two kilometers away from my home) between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. After nine days, my family decided to leave the home we had lived in for about 40 years, carrying only our important documents and a few clothes.

We fled the capital in a goods carriage truck; our group included my mom, my sister, and her kids, plus four other families. After 13 hours of fear, hope, and faith, we arrived at a safe place. The next day, I decided to travel to Egypt alone because I expected the border might close at any time.

Several buses refused to take me to the border, but I finally boarded a minibus and rode about 400 kilometers. After 55 hours at Halafa waiting for yet another bus ticket, I arrived in Aswan before continuing my trip to Cairo.

While difficult, I am grateful for all the lessons and the rewards of this experience. I’ve learned to be agile, to use my intuition to make decisions in a high-risk business environment, and to find cost-effective solutions to create more jobs for vulnerable women and support small farmers of Sudan. While the future still looks uncertain, I’m looking forward to a new start, contributing to food businesses, knowing that I have IFT at my back to help me as I navigate what’s to come.ft

The opinions expressed in Dialogue are those of the author.