Who Knows the Taste of Amhara?
With population growth and an increased number of people living in flats, the demand for ready-made products will increase. More enterprises are expected to produce and sell processed food products. Shiro powder is just one example for that expected trend.
For modern entrepreneurs in the food sector, different questions should be addressed in order to be successful in the market. Let us look at some of them.
What is “Taste of Amhara”?
The Ethio-German Engineering Capacity Building Program (ecbp) is aiming to strengthen local food entrepreneurs who are working on improved quality, food hygiene, good marketing and innovations. Therefore ecbp is launching a campaign called “Taste of Amhara”. This campaign will create awareness and bring together local enterprises with the University of Bahir Dar – Food Technology and Food Process Engineering Department. Local enterprises that want to develop a new or improved food product will get technical support from students of food technology.
We are looking for entrepreneurs who try to make a product that fits to the “Taste of Amhara’s” people while making use of local resources. Awards will be given to the best products in terms of quality, food safety, marketing and labeling and innovation. There will be special awards for "female entrepreneurs" and "environmentally friendly products/processes".
Interested existing enterprises, start-up businesses and student groups will be invited to participate in workshops on the main competition criteria. A final exhibition and competition will be held in late 2008.
What is quality?
There are many ways to describe quality. Quality means to fulfill requirements. Who is setting up these requirements? On the one hand there are legal standards and regulations while on the other hand the customers have certain requirements. The expectations and needs of customers can vary widely. It is not always easy for an entrepreneur to know and fulfill the expectations of the consumers, yet it is necessary to be successful in the market.
One popular description of quality says: “Quality is when the customer returns and not the product.” This means that if a customer is satisfied with a product he will come again to buy more products. If the quality of a product is not good, the customer will not return to the shop where the product was purchased or will not buy the same brand anymore, and may even return the product with which he is unsatisfied.
What is food safety?
Food safety means that foodstuffs should be safe for consumers to eat and not be a hazard to the health of people. Food hazards can be of different origin: biological, physical or chemical. One of the most important things is that there should not be foreign matter like stones, nails, insects, remains of detergents or any thing else in foodstuffs.
How can a product be produced in a safe way? First of all it is important that foodstuffs are produced under hygienic conditions. This includes the personal hygiene of food producers.
Some basic rules of personal hygiene are the following: Staff working in food processing should wash their hands with clean water after going to the toilet and before touching foodstuffs. They should cover their hair and not wear jewelry. Fingernails should be cut short with no nail varnish when working in food production.
What is marketing?
Marketing means that an enterprise is focusing on the market by trying to fulfill the needs of customers. The different elements of marketing are product, pricing, promotion (or market communication) and placement (or distribution) of a product. An enterprise has to think about all of these to fulfill the customers´ needs. An entrepreneur might think about the best way of distributing her products: Should she distribute the product via her own shop or is it better to sell the products through middlemen or other shops? Often it is useful to produce different kinds of products to attract different customers.
Packaging of food products is one tool of marketing. A proper label gives information about ingredients of a product, weight, shelf-life, name and address of the producer. A good label does not only give information, but is attractive for the customers.
What is innovation?
Innovation stands for developing new things and ideas. This does not necessarily mean to introduce completely new raw materials. This can be new products that are made with the same well-known local material, but with a different type of formula, processing, packaging or the like.
One example is t´eff (a cereal). In Ethiopia t´eff has been grown for thousands of years and its main use is the production of injera (a sourdough like bread which is the staple food of the Ethiopian diet). In the last few years a company in the Netherlands has developed pasta from wheat and t´eff and a t´eff-sports-bar for the European market. The positive image of t´eff is used to sell these new products, especially for active people.
Why are these questions important?
The market success of an enterprise is determined by orientation towards customers. First of all an entrepreneur has to think of a product that customers will demand. Products of good quality that are safe for consumption and attractively presented will result in a good reputation of a producer and her products. The product has to be placed where potential customers can easily buy it. All this will help a producer to be competitive in the market and to increase the market-share. This will lead to improved economic success.
Interested?
Do YOU know something about QUALITY?
What are YOUR INNOVATIONS?
Do YOU use MARKETING?
Are YOUR products correctly PACKAGED?
Did you follow FOOD HYGIENE procedures?
If you are a food entrepreneur, a start-up entrepreneur or a student of food technology, you can participate with YOUR FOOD PRODUCT in a competition on the above mentioned criteria. Technical support on the improvement of your product can be given during the campaign by the University of Bahir Dar – Food Technology Department.
If you are interested, please contact
tasteofamhara@ecbp.biz
Barbara Gamperl
mobile: 0912 01 62 37
landline: 058 220 62 78
Simon Hailu
mobile: 0911 129 374
Micro & Small Trade Industry Enterprise
Promotion Agency, Amhara National Regional State, Bahir Dar