“We Eat Maputo” is the first major social media page and blog dedicated to food in Mozambique. As a pioneering concept, it is helping to reposition the country’s hospitality industry, particularly in its capital city, Maputo. Karyn Tonela is the mastermind behind it all.

While a student at the University of Surrey, England, the traveller and food connoisseur, Karyn Tonela, felt a strong need for a platform that could showcase Mozambican cuisine and feature food businesses in an authentic and easily accessible way. And We Eat Maputo was born. Since its inception in 2017, the platform has highlighted and partnered with some of the biggest food businesses in Mozambique, and continues to grow. 

“I only shared my face on the page maybe a year or two after the page started,” says Tonela, speaking about her vision for the platform. “I wanted the page to have its own personality. I remember going out one night and having this girl scream across the room “We Eat Maputo” and I had no idea how to react, especially because I can be socially awkward at times. I try my best to keep myself and the page as separate entities, people come to me and call me an influencer but in reality, the page is the real star.”

While studying in the UK, the young adventurer would often visit the city of Lisbon, and as a self-described foodie, Tonela and her friends were always on the hunt for new and exciting places to try mouth-watering food. Through their escapades, they found apps like Zomato and Lisboa.com. “When I started scrolling through Lisboa.com I fell in love, so much so that I later personally emailed the owner and wanted to start one in Maputo. I was inspired,” she adds. She would later learn that Booking.com™, the parent company of Lisboa had tried to set up Luanda.com for Angola’s capital city, but were unsuccessful, so they expected a similar result in Maputo. At just 19, she saw this rejection not as a loss but as an opportunity to create something more original. “I picked out the colours, looked for templates, played around with different fonts and so We Eat Maputo was born.”

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It's been four years, and what started off as a hobby quickly metamorphosed into a business venture. We Eat Maputo has become the number one source for food online within Mozambique. Looking back at how it all started she finds herself laughing at silly things like the christening of the name. “I started thinking of random names and then I was like well we eat and we’re in Maputo so why not We Eat Maputo?” The name stuck and now it is synonymous with innovation, resourcefulness, and ingenuity. The page posts pictures of dishes from different food establishments tagged with the price of the item and its location in the city. It earns its revenue by advertising different businesses, collaborations, and paid visits to some restaurants to promote them. 

 Mozambique did not have a strong culture of sharing food online before We Eat Maputo. “You didn’t see food on Instagram from Mozambique anywhere. People would post on their Instagram stories but it wouldn’t go beyond that. There was no singular reference people could seek for food within the country,” explains Tonela. “Today, when you go to restaurants, you can see people taking pictures with their phones. Today, it is the norm,” she adds. Before We Eat Maputo surfaced, most food businesses did not have an Instagram page, most likely because they did not value social media nor did they understand its influence. However, that has all but changed. Thanks to We Eat Maputo, several food businesses are now able to acquire a certain level of exposure they previously didn’t have, in a medium that is more effective than TV or radio.

While Tonela and We Eat Maputo have seen substantial growth since the platform was created, like many other initiatives, it has also been affected by the global pandemic. Before COVID-19, they started an initiative called Maputo.com, which is essentially an offshoot of Lisboa.com. Tonela enlisted the help of Marcelino Dgedge, head chef at Txhapo, to create a memorable experience for a group of selected guests that would visit the restaurant. “Our goal was to go to various restaurants and do the same, and offer a unique experience,” elaborates Tonela. However, the global lockdown also meant no movement in Mozambique’s capital city. “Looking at some of our projects I would love to host mini-events like pop-ups but with the pandemic, these kinds of ideas have been kept aside for now,” she tells AMAKA.

“Knowing that my page had the power to influence a large number of people, I had to reflect on whether it was appropriate to post as much content as I did before because I did not want to give people more of an incentive to go out during the pandemic.” says Tonela. “It was a moral dilemma for me but then I realised that we’re not going to stop eating and that in fact the hospitality sector and businesses were being heavily affected by the general fear and regulations employed by the government. What people need to do is respect the recommendations and follow all the precautions like social distancing, sanitising facilities, and washing their hands.” To this end, We Eat Maputo took action and started #WeEatEmCasa, an initiative to help put a spotlight on home-based chefs and small businesses. The page also encouraged people to stay at home and share recipes of local dishes.

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"“I love food, and not in the sense of eating a lot, but [because of] the way you can play around with different flavours and get a completely different taste in the end"

Planning for the future

“The government has no obligation to help us but if they did, I think it would be very helpful in terms of outreach projects. It would allow us to visit different provinces and see what’s happening there, the kind of restaurants that are popping up, and what type of food is popular.” Tonela and the We Eat Maputo team have many ideas about how to further their vision, like having their own personalised menu at restaurants, with a selection of their favourite dishes. In a more official capacity, they’d like to collaborate with government entities such as the Inspeção Nacional Das Atividades Econômicas, INAE (National Inspection of Economic Activities) to provide more regulations that make food businesses more accountable. Tonela feels that these kinds of initiatives would create competition for the hospitality sector and provide incentives for business owners to be more creative, thus pushing them to offer a better overall experience.“

I love food, and not in the sense of eating a lot, but [because of] the way you can play around with different flavours and get a completely different taste in the end,” says Tonela. “One of my personal limitations is translating what I feel into words which makes me hesitant to critique food.” As the leading social media and online platform in Mozambique, We Eat Maputo has the unique opportunity of ushering a new vocabulary to define Mozambican cuisine, and this is something Tonela is highly cognisant of. 

Currently, their biggest challenge is navigating all of the obstacles within the country. “We have a million ideas but we lack funds to implement all of them,” says Tonela. She tells AMAKA that while We Eat Maputo is mainly an Instagram page, it is also a registered company; by selling part-ownership to Zwela, a locally-based marketing agency, they were able to secure investment for the platform. “There are so many ideas that sometimes I find myself looking around the walls and asking myself where should I start,” says Tonela. But her team is fairly confident about where they stand. As they plan for the future, it is exciting to see what they will do next and how it will continue to galvanise the food industry in Maputo.