1. .....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
EBR | November 16 - December 15 2014 Edition31
................
EBR
...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................F cusF cusF cus
The Commercialization of Injera
Establishing Standards for the Growing Business
of Exporting Injera
Injera, the spongy flatbread that’s central to Ethiopian cuisine, has been a staple within Ethiopia for
centuries. But now, many companies have started to produce the food item for consumers in Ethiopia
and abroad. Companies like Mama Fresh Injera have gained worldwide popularity for providing the
popular dish for food lovers around the world. However, as EBR’s Yoseph Mekonnen reports, the
government has been having difficulties to establish and enforce standards for the production and
distribution of injera, which may pose problems as it gains increased popularity worldwide.
R
ecently, injera – the spongy flatbread made of teff
that’s central to Ethiopian cuisine – has begun ap-
pearing at a number of markets in Ethiopia and
around the world.
Previously, buying injera was usually regarded as something
thatonlypeoplewhocouldn’tcookforthemselvesdidbecauseof
its tiresome fermentation and baking process and lack of space
intheirhomes.However,nowit’sbecomeincreasinglycommon
for people from all walks of life to purchase injera, regardless of
their culinary skill level.
Changesinlifestyle,especiallypeoplelivingincondominiums
with tiny kitchen facilities, as well as the vast and expansive
EthiopianDiaspora,havecontributedtothepopularityofinjera
being sold worldwide.
Asaresult,thenumberofmarketsandshopsinEthiopiaand
aboard that sell injera have grown exponentially. Many store-
ownerswhowereapproachedbyEBRsaythatinjerahasbecome
one of their most sought after products.
The average price for injera in Ethiopia ranges from ETB3.50
up to ETB4.50 per piece.
“Usuallymanypeopletellmetosaveinjeraforthemwhenever
they are late, because they know that it will be sold out,” says
Ali Mohammed, a shopkeeper around Woyera Condominium.
“There are many other customers who need injera. I usually sell
and finish the injera before 7PM.”
And it’s not just households; institutions also have an in-

2. ETHIOPIANBUSINESSREVIEW.COM 32
..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... ................
.....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................F cus
creased demand for injera. The booming number of hotels and
higher learning intuitions in the country has also contributed
to this surge in demand for injera.
For instance, Addis Ababa University, the country’s largest
university, consumes more than 18,000 injera pieces per day.
The University buys one injera piece for roughly ETB 4.46 and
spends, on average, more than ETB 12 million for injera an-
nually.
“The process of preparing injera for our cafe-using students
proved to be tiresome and time-consuming. We want to give
priority for educational matters, so we have outsourced the
production of injera to other external companies,” said Assefa
Woldemariam, student services director at the University.
Outsourcing labor is not only used by universities to avoid
the cumbersome injera-making process; hotels and restaurants
do this as well. Teferi Mekonnen serves as a supervisor for a
restaurant and cafe located on African Avenue. His business
uses more than 1,400 injera pieces per month and this amount
is being supplied by another injera-producing company.
Following the commercialization of injera, many small and
big injera-supplying businesses have opened up, some of which
have achieved quite a bit of success. Among these businesses is
Mama Fresh Injera. The family-owned business, which began
operationsin2003,usedtobakebetween300to500injerapieces
per day at its inception stage.
“When we started we used to sell one injera for 0.75 cents
to attract customers,” says Hailu Tessema, general manger of
Mama Fresh. “It had been a bad thing to buy injera from shops
in Ethiopia for many years, but now that has become history.”
However, now the price of injera has increased quite a bit.
Teff,thegrainthatisusedtoproduceinjera,has,inrecentyears,
experienced inflated prices, which is usually attributed to the
price increase of injera. Three years ago, Mama Fresh had a teff
supply problem, but now the manger says that they have a re-
liable teff supply.
“Monthlytheybuy400quintalsoftefffromthefarmers’union
for an average price of ETB 1,700 per quintal. Now that we have
this reliable supply, we have the capacity of producing 15,000
injera per day,” Hailu told EBR.
Approximately eight years ago, following the increasing
price of teff and its fragile supply, the government has banned
its export.
“The majority of Ethiopians are reliant on this grain, so at
that time, letting exporters export it abroad would have created
ashortageandinflatedpricesinthecountry,”saysAbdurahman
Seid, deputy communications head at the Ministry of Trade.
Butthisbandidn’tlastforever.UnderstandingtheEthiopian
Jews’loveforinjera,nowtheIsraeliandEthiopiangovernments
haveanagreementinwhichthecountryimportstefffromEthi-
opia. The two countries’ governments have signed a special teff
trading deal because of the more than 125,000 Ethiopian Jews
who are living in Israel.
Despite the ban on exporting teff, the exporting of injera is
gaining momentum and increasing in both volume and value.
The large number of Ethiopians living abroad is one of the
reasons why injera is being exported on a massive scale. Tour-
ists who have had exposure to the taste of injera is also another
reason,accordingtoAsnakeFikre(PhD),cropresearcheratthe
Ethiopian Agriculture Research Institute.
This global appeal means big business for those involved in
theinjera-producingsector.Forexample,inJanuary2014,40Pct
of Mama Fresh’s shares were bought by 12 American investors
who hope to get involved in the injera-making business.
“We have started to prepare products other than injera and
we will be releasing those new products at the end of this year,”
says the manager of Mama Fresh. “We want to see injera and
other teff products on dinner tables around the world. We are
sure we can make this a reality,” he adds.
The Company, which started with 8 workers, now has cre-
ated jobs for more than 142 people in Ethiopia and abroad.
The company exports injera to Sweden, Norway, Germany,
Finland and Nigeria. Between September 2013 and July 2014,
the Company exported injera worth of USD1.3million. This
amount is about 65Pct of the company’s production. “When
we started exporting injera five years ago, the money that we
would get was not more than USD50,000, but now we are ex-
periencing an upsurge in our exports. The average price of
injera abroad is 1 USD.”
Following the commercialization of injera in 2013, the Ethi-
opianStandardsAgency(ESA)establishedspecificationsforteff
injera. “We prepared this specification because several requests
came from many injera exporting small micro-enterprise com-
paniesandotherinjeraexporters,”saysKetmaTolosa,standards
developmentprojectmanageratESA.“OurAgencybelievesthat
the preparation of the standards helps injera producers involve
themselves in the exporting process.”
The specifications provide details of the inputs used for the
production of injera. Moreover, according these specifications,
the minimum size of injera must be 51cm in diameter while
having 310g net mass. The moisture content also must be 58g to
63g of the injera. Along with these requirements, the packaging
ofinjeraalsohasrequirements:productname,nutritionalfacts,
best before date, ingredients, address of producer or exporter,
trade name, weight, storage instructions and country of origin.
ESA claims responsibility only to prepare the specifications;
it transferred the enforcement to government entities like the
EthiopianFood,MedicineandHealthCareAdministrationand
Control Authority (FMHCACA). However, FMHCACA states
thatitisdifficulttoimplementthesespecificationsinthecurrent
injera production setups in the country.
“Most of the people who are involved in producing injera
can’t fulfil these criteria, so we can’t implement it now, unless
great awareness creation work is done by the ESA itself,” says
Mehari Birhane, food distribution director at FMHCACA. EBR