Every step of one’s life requires all we have learned in the past to succeed. As Walt Disney famously put it, “to succeed, work hard, never give up and above all cherish a magnificent obsession.” One Tufts alum in particular embodies these words: Joshua Reed-Diawuoh (A’13).
Today, Reed-Diawuoh is the founder of GRIA Food Co., a company that sells ethically-farmed cashews from West Africa, supporting both the economic development of these nations and the farmers who took the enterprising step to process their product for consumption. You might spot him at Tufts teaching his Paths to Entrepreneurship course where he works to inspire the next generation of entrepreneurs. If that wasn’t impressive enough, he’s also a senior manager at MassHousing.
But like all successful people, he had to start somewhere. For Reed-Diawuoh, his experience at Tufts was transformative.
“When I was at Tufts, I took a lot of political science and international relations courses, and that was a really great introduction to comparative politics, the world of international trade and economics and understanding how different power dynamics influence sectors like food and agriculture,” Reed-Diawuoh said.
While at Tufts, Reed-Diawuoh made the decision to study abroad in his father’s home country of Ghana, an experience he described as “really formative.” He shared how his experiences while studying abroad helped inspire him to pursue an eventual career as an entrepreneur.
“I took international development courses in Ghana and understood even more clearly how political economy influences nations and emerging economies,” he said. “The rules of the game were not set to the benefit of many nations in the Global South, [and] in Sub-Saharan Africa.”
Having seen Ghanaian farmers struggle to expand and improve their profits in the face of globalization, Reed-Diawuoh had found the golden ticket of entrepreneurship: a problem. This idea led him to the next step of his educational journey, a Master of Business Administration at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“The most powerful thing about an MBA program is the space you have to take risks and to pursue avenues you might not have pursued otherwise,” Reed-Diawuoh said. “You have this liberating freedom to try wacky projects. There’s also an ecosystem of support around you.”
With this new knowledge and support, Reed-Diawuoh began the initial steps of starting his business, GRIA Food Co., a business that would benefit both West African farmers and American consumers.
First, he had to consider which agriculture product would be best for his business design.
“I wanted to start with a product that was niche but also widely known and already accepted,” Reed-Diawuoh said.
He considered a wide variety of products grown in West Africa including chocolate, cassava and cashews. After researching their profit margins, shelf lives and profit left with the farmer, Reed-Diawuoh settled on cashews. They met all of his market validation criteria and, most importantly, required a large value addition step (i.e., when the farmer removes the husk and does an initial roasting so they greatly increase their profit margin). By purchasing cashews that are grown and processed in Ghana, Reed-Diawuoh would be able to help improve the fare of farmers in West Africa.
Now with a viable product in mind, Reed-Diawuoh had to get into the weeds of the supply chain.
“Importing produce to the U.S. is obviously a long, drawn out process that requires permitting and approvals from the federal government, so I had to do a considerable amount of paperwork,” he said. “Food is a tricky business, and you have to keep the public safe.”
After many regulatory steps and a lot of waiting, he finally had the necessary permits in hand to begin the task of product testing and getting into sales.
“[I was] making sure that I had flavors that people were excited about, getting small amounts of packaging printed. And then, [I started] at small scale farmers markets and selling to friends and family. … From there, [I] knocked on doors, went to different independent retail stores around Greater Boston, dropped off samples [and] sent hundreds of emails,” Reed-Diawuoh said.
After graduating from MIT, Reed-Diawuoh was only part way through creating his business. Having gained enough traction by late 2023, he quit his job at Danaher Corporation and went full-time working on GRIA.
Over two years later, Reed-Diawuoh began working full-time for MassHousing which works to finance affordable and mixed income housing developments. He still runs GRIA but has automated many of its day-to-day operations with the help of Shopify. Reed-Diawuoh also finds the time to co-teach a class at Tufts to get students excited to be entrepreneurs.
Drawing upon his experience in the workforce and entrepreneurship, Reed-Diawuoh provided insight to young entrepreneurs, comparing starting a business to being a versatile Swiss Army knife.
“There’s so many areas and domains that you need to be dangerous in. It’s just like an infinite learning opportunity. And that, to me, is one of the most special parts about entrepreneurship. You’re just always learning,” Reed-Diawuoh said.
Above all else, his biggest piece of advice is to never give up.
“It’s going to sound really cliche, but you just … have to keep going,” Reed-Diawuoh said. “In the first part of my young adulthood, I was very risk averse and I wanted to do the safe thing like work at a large consulting company and do what was expected. … GRIA has been a really enlightening experience because I’ve been able to try something completely new where I had to reinvent the wheel so many different times. I think I’d tell my younger self to dive into more of those experiences.”
