Partnering for sustainable and nutritious solutions in Ethiopia

The Sustainable Food Partnership aims at leveraging best-of-class knowledge within the food production industry to create sustainable impacts. The ambition is to create a production of healthy, affordable biscuits in Ethiopia, which can both increase nutritional value for consumers and support sustainable, local economic development for smallholder farmers and producers.

Almost 40% of children under the age of 5 in Ethiopia experience stunting, impaired growth and development, due to malnutrition. Meanwhile, more than 13 million smallholder farmers are unable to participate in commercial value chains to sell their nutritious crops and ingredients due to market barriers. This disconnect highlights the opportunity to boost sustainable sourcing from local producers to ensure better nutrition for local communities.

With funding from P4G, the Sustainable Food Partnership is led by DanChurchAid and seeks to rethink market-based solutions for food and nutrition security in Ethiopia together with the partners Arla Foods Ingredients, BoP Innovation Center, Novonesis, ENGSKO United Milling Systems, MoYa Food Complex and GC Rieber Compact.

The Sustainable Food Partnership combines knowledge to produce a new nutritious, accessible and affordable biscuit to ensure sustainable food for all

A full value chain approach

The Sustainable Food Partnership focuses on the whole value chain from small-scale farmer to consumer and builds on a collaborative partnership model linking an Ethiopian biscuit manufacturer with global leaders in food tech and food production.

The partnership taps into existing knowledge and brings together local producers with global partners to co-develop and test nutritious and sustainable food solutions. The main focus will be on Ethiopia with potential cross links made to other countries in the region, such as Kenya.

A twofold output

By combining knowledge to produce a new nutritious, accessible and affordable biscuit, the partnership aims to develop a replicable model to ensure sustainable food for all.

The expected output is twofold: improved nutrition and food security through the production of an affordable and nutritious biscuit targeting children and women in two selected markets both commercial outlets as well as refugee communities; and local income generation through a sustainable business model.

The overall ambition is to promote better nutrition for base-of-the-pyramid consumers in Ethiopia, strengthen smallholder farmers’ access to commercial value chains and demonstrate an innovative SDG2 solution with sustainable impact and a solid business case.