Yolélé products can be found at various retailer partners nationwide. Check out our Store Locator to find a location near you!

In our store locator you can search by Yolélé product line, but if you're looking for a specific Yolélé product or flavor, we recommend calling a store directly to find out what they carry.

Thank you so much for your support and love for Yolélé! To help us get our products in your local store, please request it with your local store manager, or, shoot us an email at info@yolelefoods.com and let us know what products you'd like to see and at what store.

Customer requests are one of the best ways for us to grow our distribution and availability!

Fonio is an ancient African grain. It’s a tiny grain that cooks up light and fluffy in just 5 minutes. You can use fonio the way you can use any other grain!

Also known as “the seed of the universe” —according to the Dogon People of Mali, the universe was born from a seed of fonio. It’s tasty, easy to cook, and highly nutritious! It’s similar to a cross between couscous and quinoa, with a smaller grain, fluffy texture, and slightly nutty flavor.

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Fonio is extremely nutrient dense, quick + easy to cook, and is vegan and gluten free. Fonio is a low-glycemic grain, low FODMAP, and easy to digest. It has higher fiber than white rice, and a stellar protein profile. What does that mean? While fonio is only mildly high in protein, it’s the quality of the amino acids that make up the protein that are strong, with high amounts amino acids methionine and cystine, which are not found in other grains. 

Fonio is also a good source of B vitamins, including thiamine, riboflavin, and niacin, which are necessary for the growth, development, and function of cells, as well as energy production

You can use fonio as a substitute for any of your favorite grains or plant based products. It’s great on its own but is also delicious as a side dish, a salad, a cold cereal, a hot porridge, to use in baking, and more. Check out our recipes page for inspiration!

Fonio cooks in 5 minutes! Just add water in a 2:1 ratio, bring to a boil, then cover, turn off the heat, and let it sit for 5 minutes. Then fluff with a fork.

Fonio goes by many names. In  Nigeria, it’s known as acha. In The Gambia it’s commonly referred to as findi or fundi. Fonio (or foño) is a Wolof word. Its Latin name is digitaria exilis.

Our Fonio has a shelf life of 36 months. Our Fonio Pilafs have a shelf life of 18 months.

Fonio and quinoa each have unique health benefits that help to support a delicious, nutritious, real foods lifestyle. We don’t like to declare winners in the land of nutritious, culturally important heritage foods, but since you’re asking: fonio has more micronutrients, a lower Glycemic Index, and more diverse amino acids that make up the proteins. That includes two amino acids (methionine and cysteine) that are hard to find outside of animal protein. Quinoa has more grams of protein per serving than fonio.

Fonio grows across the Sahel region of West Africa, where it has been cultivated for over 5,000 years, making it the world’s oldest cultivated grain!

We say its taste is like a cross between couscous and quinoa. It looks similar to couscous when cooked, and has a similar texture, though it’s slightly more nubbly and whole grain tasting— like quinoa!

Yes! Fonio is a great choice for a low FODMAP diet.

Yes, fonio is naturally gluten-free.

We source certified organic fonio directly from smallholder farmers (mainly women). Today our final packaged products are not certified organic but we hope to get certification soon.

Yes! Yolélé fonio is low Glycemic Index, gluten-free, low FODMAP, vegan, non-GMO, kosher, alkaline, low-fat, low-cholesterol, and a whole food, with nothing artificial. Fonio is easy to digest. Fonio is often recommended by nutritionists and dieticians to patients with pre-diabetes or Type 1 Diabetes as a nutritious (and easy to make!) alternative to white rice or processed grains.

That’s a NO from us! We started Yolélé to increase incomes for the smallholder farmers (mainly women) in the Sahel Region of West Africa who have been cultivating fonio for generations as subsistence farmers— that is, growing it to feed their families. Our goal is to make it possible for those farmers to make a living wage from their climate-resilient farming, not to take it from them to be grown abroad.

Fonio is a perfect food for pregnant and nursing parents and first food for babies! In West Africa, fonio is prized by pregnant and breastfeeding mothers. It is known to stimulate breast milk production, be easy to digest when other foods are not, and provide a vital source of nutrition (thanks to its strong amino acid profile). Fonio is also a perfect first food for babies for its nutrition and ease to eat, as soon as babies are ready to start solids. Check out Solid Starts for more information on how to serve.

Crispy, crunchy, and light, they are perfect on their own or with all your favorite dips. We’ve heard people say they’re similar to a tortilla chip without the corn flavor. They’re bold, bright, delicious, and better for you, while still being totally craveable.

At the moment the chips are not yet certified organic, but the fonio that is used to make them is.

Yolélé has refreshed our branding! As we roll out our new look over the next few months, you may encounter some products in our old branding and some with the new look. It’s all the same carefully sourced bold West African foods inside!

We’re here to help! Please email our team at support@yolelefoods.com.

Unfortunately, as a food business we don't offer returns. If there is an issue with your order, please reach out to us at support@yolelefoods.com.

Please check with your shipping provider; you will have tracking information sent to you.

Yolélé is not responsible for delayed, unclaimed, or returned orders due to incorrect or undeliverable addresses or delays caused by our delivery partners due to weather or other causes beyond our control.

Not yet! Right now, we only ship within the United States, but we hope to bring Yolélé to the world soon.

Yolélé is a large scale fonio supplier. Yolélé sells fonio in bulk to food and beverage manufacturers around the world today. Yolélé is a group of companies, vertically integrated  in West Africa with direct farm relationships, aggregation, and processing. We can supply large volumes of GFSI-certified, fully traceable fonio through our sister companies in the US and in West Africa. Please email info@yolele.com for more information!

You can find many of our products at various retail distributors, including UNFI, KeHE, and Rainforest Specialty Foods. If you can’t find what you’re looking for at your local distributor, please contact us at sales@yolelefoods.com. If you prefer to order directly, please browse our wholesale catalog on Faire.com. Wholesale prices are only available for the retail and foodservice trade.

To order directly, check out our wholesale catalog on Faire.com. Otherwise, please email sales@yolelefoods.com and include the name and location of your business for more information.

Yolélé is a Fulani term of exuberance used throughout West and Central Africa. It roughly translates to “Let the Good Times Roll” (or, like in New Orleans, “Laissez Les Bon Temps Rouler!”). People shout out “Yolélé!” to get parties started and people dancing.

We work directly with smallholder farmers (mainly women) and NGOs to source regeneratively grown fonio. Yolélé is unlocking a path to market to make a living for farmers that previously did not have access to a national or global market. This market access lifts communities out of abject poverty and especially invests in women as fonio is a women’s crop. Through our equitable sourcing of underutilized African crops like fonio, Yolélé is also working to combat climate change and mitigate the effects of climate change. Fonio has deep roots that help prevent erosion, grows quickly with little water (totally rainfed), and when grown in concert with other crops in a virtuous cycle, actually can help to regreen the Sahel Region of Africa which is getting hotter and drier every year.

TL;DR: Yolélé fonio is good for people, and good for the planet.

Thank you so much for your interest! We’re not hiring at the moment. We will update this answer when we are. Please check on our LinkedIn page for job postings as well. But we’re always looking for ways to get our community involved. If you want to get in touch with us, reach out at info@yolelefoods.com.