1. Ready-to-eat staple food markets are rapidly transforming in urban Ethiopia as the population grows and urbanizes. The market for prepared injera, a staple bread, has expanded significantly. 2. Injera-making microenterprises that employ women are proliferating in cities like Addis Ababa to meet demand. These businesses prepare injera using a mix of local teff and imported rice. 3. Large injera export markets are also emerging, with over $10 million in annual exports. The food processing sector in Ethiopia is undergoing significant changes with implications for trade, employment, and food security.

1. ETHIOPIAN DEVELOPMENT
RESEARCH INSTITUTE
Food processing in developing countries:
The case of ready-to-eat staple food (Enjera) markets in Urban Ethiopia
By Thomas Woldu
With Girum Abebe, Ermias Engida, Seneshaw Tamru and Bart Minten:
Ethiopian Economics Association (EEA)
14th International Conference on the Ethiopian Economy
July21-24, 2016
Addis Ababa
1

2. 1. Introduction
• Quick growth of cities in developing countries - rapid food system
transformation
• 2010( > 50%), 1950s ( 30 % ) world population living in cities
• Growth of cities -higher commercial flows urban to rural, changes
in the types of food eaten
• Shares of cities in total food consumption > urban population
shares per se (Reardon et al., 2015)
• Urban food markets - dominant markets for farmers, at least as
important as rural markets and - more important than export
markets

3. 1. Introduction
• Studies on food system transformation in developing countries so far focused on;
• Modern retail revolution
• Share of branded and packaged foods
• Increasing share of food eaten away from home
• Finally, the issue of processed foods
• In Ethiopia, 1 million people are employed in food processing enterprises,
• But its functioning and transformation is not well understood
• In this paper, we look specifically at commercial enjera making in Ethiopia
• How increasing emergence of enjera making enterprises and preparation
changes is leading to food system transformation,
• implication on gender, employment, & trade

4. 2. Data and methodology
• We rely on a number of secondary data
• HICES dataset from the past four rounds: 1995/96, 1999/00, 2004/05, and
2010/11.
• CSA large and medium scale manufacturing (CSA, 2012) and small
scale manufacturing survey (CSA, 2015)
• We further fielded a number of primary surveys in three cities in
• Addis Ababa; tier 1 cities; capital and largest city
• Dire Dawa; the tier 2 cities; 0.34 million in 2007 census
• Finally, Nekempte; tier 3 cities; 0.075 million in 2007 census

5. • We conducted the survey on mills, enejra sellers and enjera making
enterprises
• To select a representative sample of outlets
• 10 sub-cities in Addis: half of them randomly selected (after
geographical stratification)
• List of all mills from the wereda/kebele Trade and Industry Offices
• In each selected sub-city, four wereda/kebeles were selected
randomly
• Within the selected wereda/kebeles, two ketenas were selected
randomly
2. Data and methodology

6. • Taking into account the relative number of the outlets;
• (a) At the kebele level; All the flour mills, large(>=5 mitads) and
medium(3 and 4 mitads) EMEs were surveyed
• (b) At the ketena level; Informal microsellers of enjera (gulits)
and enjera retailers were randomly selected and interviewed
• A similar strategy with minor adjustments in Dire Dawa and Nekemt
• In total, information from 243 mills, 345 enjera sellers, and 214 EMEs
2. Data and methodology

7. 1. We see that enjera consumption has been increasing rapidly over time (HICES)
• Enjera makes 6% in 2000, 13% in 2005 and 38 % in 2011 of all teff expenditures
• We further note that it is especially the relatively rich urban population that buys
enjera in ready-to-eat form
• This seems to indicate that improving incomes in Ethiopia will lead to further
expansion of this sector
3.Results
0
20
40
60
80
Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5
Figure 1: Share of enjera expenditures in total teff expenditures in urban areas

8. 2. Enjeras are increasingly being prepared by mixing the local teff with imported rice
3. Results
Large Medium Small
Mean Sd. Mean Sd. Mean Sd.
Share magna teff 19.5 37.2 11.9 31.4 4.9 20.0
Share white teff 52.6 43.7 50.6 44.9 35.9 42.1
Share mix teff 11.2 29.7 24.7 39.7 37.6 40.6
Share red teff 2.4 13.5 0.6 4.0 3.0 13.7
Share rice 10.1 9.3 8.7 10.1 8.4 10.4
Share sorghum 1.3 3.4 0.9 3.6 8.1 16.0
Share wheat 1.4 5.5 0.0 0.0 0.1 0.8
Share maize 1.4 3.5 0.9 3.0 1.9 5.6
Share millet 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.1 0.7
Share others 0.0 0.0 1.7 11.2 0.1 0.9
Total 100.0 100.0 100.0
Large Medium Small
Mean Mean Mean
Addis Ababa 10.9 11.5 13.1
Dire Dawa 10.0 3.8 1.9
Nekempte 0.0 0.0 0.0
Share of rice by cityMixing of flour for enjera by enjera making enterprises

9. Rapidly increasing rice imports in the country
3. Results

10. There are few large enterprises, who are also supplying for the export market
3. Results
Value of Fresh enjera export in million birr Growth of enjera export by destination

11. 3. Enjera making micro-enterprises that almost exclusively employ women are
rapidly starting up
• It is estimated that in Addis alone over 30,000 people are employed in enjera making
enterprises and enjera retailing
• i.e. between 0.5 percent and 1 percent of Addis’s total population
3. Results
Large Medium Small
Unit Mean Sd. Mean Sd. Mean Sd.
Males numbers 4.26 10.14 1.11 1.45 0.30 1.05
Females numbers 11.45 7.24 5.68 6.16 1.54 0.96
Total workers numbers 15.71 14.87 6.80 6.27 1.84 1.45
Employment by enjera making enterprises

12. 4. We note upscaling of those enjera making enterprises that supply to the growing food
service sector
3. Results
Large Medium Small
Mean Mean Mean
Sales
Enjera sales per week 6,080 1,287 364
Clients
Consumers 41.7 37.7 85.7
Enjera retailers 13.2 17.0 6.3
Gulits 0.3 0.7 2.6
Institutions 0.1 0.9 0.0
Restaurants 42.5 37.1 5.2
Supermarkets/mini-markets 2.3 0.2 0.0
Others 0.0 6.7 0.5
Total 100.0 100.0 100.2

13. • First, seemingly the rising opportunity costs of women
• CSA data; costs of maids increase by 60 percent between 2000 and 2015
• Some people forego hiring maids who would make enjera at home and buy enjera
instead
• The maids also find it logical to make and sell enjera instead of serving
• Second, the growth of cities, the take-off of employment in services or in
manufacturing, and income growth;
• higher share of the population relying on out-of-home consumption, - development of a
food service industry, especially restaurants
• out-of-home food expenditures makes 3.8 % in 1996, 13.2% in 2011 of per capita
expenditures in urban areas (HICES)
• This industry is mostly supplied by the increasing EME sector, seemingly giving an
impetus to the emergence of especially larger EMEs.
4. Drivers of the changes

14. • Two potential drivers - for the increasing mixing of teff with rice;
• First, rice is replacing sorghum for whiteness and flexibility of enjera
• As stated by the large majority of EMEs, it improves whiteness and
flexibility
• Second, improved price ratios compared with teff and with sorghum
4. Drivers of the changes
0.00
1.00
2.00
3.00
4.00
5.00
Ratio rice over teff Ratio rice over sorghum

15. • First, enjera markets are quickly transforming and a large number of people,
especially in urban areas, now buy enjera instead of preparing it themselves
• Second, enjeras are increasingly being prepared by mixing the local teff with imported
rice, having important implications on food imports
• Third, micro-enterprises that prepare enjera are quickly emerging.
• These enterprises are overall small but the relatively larger ones are catering to the
rapidly increasing food service sector in Ethiopia
• However, access to electricity is shown to be an important constraint to their operations.
• Fourth, formal export markets are taking off, now accounting for 10 million USD
exports per year
5. Conclusion

16. • First, as developing countries’ economies grow and urbanization takes off, more
attention is needed to the off-farm aspect of agricultural value chains as they have
important impacts on employment, prices and food security for urban as well as rural
populations.
• Second, as agricultural economies and cities develop, international trade is seemingly
becoming increasingly important as these cities are easier to access, for food imports
as well as exports
• More attention should therefore be paid to trade policies and their impact
5. Policy implications

17. Thank you for your time!