After beginning her university studies in chemical engineering, Zandile Queen Finxa, 30, pivoted into food sciences, graduating top of her class in consumer science: hospitality management at the University of Pretoria. She is a product developer at Woolworths, where she’s the creative force behind the cakes on the bakery shelves and a recipe developer and food writer for Woolworths TASTE magazine. But Zandile’s influence extends far beyond commercial kitchens. She’s the founder of The Sorghum Agenda, a food activism project that reimagines indigenous grains like sorghum in gluten-free cookies and retail concepts. This work has gained international recognition, featured at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Nutrivision Nigeria conference and in the documentary Mxsterminds. A former Food XX Women in Food Award winner and a Top 3 research presenter at the Critical Food Studies: Transdisciplinary Humanities Conference, Zandile’s approach to food is scholarly and spiritual. Her master’s research on sustainable indigenous food systems draws on her Basotho heritage and lessons from her grandmother, whose root-to-tip cooking philosophy became a blueprint for Zandile’s decolonial culinary mission.