Dr Driando Ahnan-Winarno
Dr Amadeus Driando Ahnan-Winarno is an Indonesian food scientist, entrepreneur, and activist whose life's work centres on tempeh — Indonesia's traditional fermented soybean food — as a vehicle for improving global nutrition, sustainability, and food equity. He grew up in Indonesia deeply influenced by his grandfather, a pioneering food scientist who became the founding figure of food science and technology in Indonesia and served as President of the FAO-WHO Codex Alimentarius Commission in Rome. Standing on this generational foundation, Driando pursued his own academic career in food science, completing a Bachelor's in Biotechnology from Atma Jaya Catholic University of Indonesia before earning his PhD in Food Science from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
In 2014, while still a student, he co-founded the Indonesian Tempe Movement, an international non-profit now spanning 16 countries, which educates communities about tempeh as an affordable, nutritious, and sustainable source of protein. In 2019, he co-founded Better Nature in the United Kingdom alongside Elin Roberts, Chris Kong, and Fabio Rinaldo, bringing the company's Indonesian heritage and his deep scientific expertise to building the UK's leading tempeh brand. As co-founder and CTO — a role he has described as Chief Tempeh Officer — he leads R&D and product innovation, including inventing four patents and co-authoring the definitive scientific review of tempeh fermentation, known informally as The Tempeh Bible.
Better Nature has grown to hold 38.1% of the UK tempeh market by volume and is the sole tempeh brand in Asda with full-estate distribution, with its Organic Tempeh as the top-selling tempeh SKU in Tesco. The company achieved 128% year-on-year sales growth in Q2 2025, and its German market grew 330% in the same period. Driando’s role has been central to the technical differentiation that underpins this commercial success, including an Innovate UK-funded collaboration to develop a tempeh-based whole-cut chicken alternative.
A TEDxJakarta and G20 Global Food Security Summit 2022 speaker, Driando is one of the most prominent voices on tempeh science internationally. Better Nature is a certified B Corp and donates 1% of sales to a partner charity addressing malnutrition in Indonesia, reflecting his conviction that commercialising tempeh globally should tangibly benefit the communities where it originated.
