Amru Shemsha, in his early 20s, has a small shop at Comoros Street, in front of the Belgium Embassy. He sells various items, from edible oil to hair oil, sugar, salt, washing products and rice. Eggs, too, have their place on his shelves. His suppliers are Friendship Agro Industry Plc, in DebreZeit, where he says he bought his latest supply of 100 eggs for 3.25 Br apiece. He sells at a mark-up of 25 cents per egg.
It is almost the same everywhere, with most shops selling eggs for at least 3.25 Br apiece, with a few exceptions charging a little less at 3.00 Br, while others charge 3.60 Br or more. A price increase has been seen over the past three to four weeks, with most suppliers absolving themselves of increasing prices, saying they have no choice but to follow the example of their suppliers.
The price of eggs has increased twice since the Ethiopian New Year on September 11, 2014. Amru was selling eggs for 2.60 Br each, two months ago. At New Year the price ranged from 2.50 Br to 2.80 Br. Then it increased to 3.00 Br, and now prices range from 3.25 – 3.80 Br in different places.
“As a retailer we could not know the reason behind our suppliers’ price increases,” Amru says.
His supplier, Friendship Agro Industry Plc, produces eggs at its farm in Debre Zeit. It is a well-known supplier of chicken cages, processed poultry feed, eggs and pullet chickens. The company was established by three university graduates as a small micro-enterprise in 2010. They have small customers such as Amru and big ones, such as Mulmul Bakery & Pastry, which says it buys 10,000 eggs a week for its 19 branches. Prices are increasing, says Shimiret Abate, owner of Mulmul, and they have fewer suppliers, so they cannot negotiate reduced prices.
“Even though we are not yet thinking of raising the prices of some of our products, or of reducing supply, we are affected by the price increase,” said Shimiret.
WanchaYetana, a mother of three living around Yerer, beyond Gerji in Yeka District, does her shopping at the Shola Market. On Thursday November 6, 2014, she bought two hens for 180 Br and 10 eggs for 30 Br. While the number of eggs she bought then was the same as she did in the “old” days, she says she has cut her family’s weekly consumption of 10 eggs to five or six because of the recent price increase. “I now use more tomatoes and onions with the eggs when I cook eggs for my kids,” said Wancha.
Wancha usually preferred to buy her eggs in her neighbourhood, but she saves 50 cents per egg coming to Shola, even though she risks breaking some of the eggs on the way back home.
A restaurant near Global Hotel on Sierra Leona Street now buys its eggs at 3.30 Br each, up from 2.60 Br not long ago, but they are not considering increasing the prices of their egg dishes. Friendship has sales outlets in Addis Abeba, one of which is near Amru’s shop, and a 0.4ha farm at Debre Zeit (Bishoftu), where they keep 5,200 chickens. On average these chickens lay 4,700 eggs a day, which the company sells for 3.55 Br each.
Exotic chickens lay, on average, up to 300 eggs per year, whereas indigenous chickens lay 40-60 eggs per year.
“The price of processed chicken feed has not increased,” says Gezat Werk, Friendship’s manager.
“Usually the price of eggs increases as the price of processed food for chickens increases, but there has been no significant change. We sell feed for pullets at 796 Br, before and after the price variation,” added Gezat.
The price of maize, the main ingredient for chicken feed, has not increased from 7.50 Br a kilogram over the past two months.
Processed poultry food is made of different ingredients, which are rich in protein and carbohydrates: almost 50pc of the processed food is maize. But the combination varies according to the age of the hens. Experts recommend 20pc cent, 18pc, and 16pc cent of protein content to be included for day-old chickens, pullets and chickens above four months, respectively.
Friendship, which feeds its birds, the feed it produces itself, has also increased its price for no particular reason,other than to charge the same price as everybody else in the market, according to Gezat.
“Our price is determined by the biggest poultry companies in Debre Zeit, and we have no choice but to follow their price,” said Bezuayehu Gemechu, who manages Friendship’s farm in Bishoftu.
Bishoftu is home to the biggest names in the poultry industry, including Elfora, a subsidiary of MIDROC Ethiopia, Alema Farm, and Genesis Farm. Alema Farm, established in 1993, supplies broiler chickens, day old chickens, three month old pullet and processed poultry food. The company has now reached an annual supply capacity of 400,000 broiler chickens, 300,000 day-old chickens and 100,000 three month old pullets, according to its website. They import parent chickens from the Netherlands at a price of 200 Br each and breed them in order to sell to framers at 20 Br, and 100 Br when they become pullet. Alemayhu Amdemariam, co-owner of the company, blames the latest price increase on the price decrease he says happened several months ago, when the price of eggs fell to below two Birr each, which he says led to some suppliers leaving the market.
RegasaWarye, 71, is a regular customer of Alema. He lives in DebreZeit, at the place locally known as Rufael Church. He had 100 pullets that he bought from Alema at the price of 60 Br each. He also gets the processed food for his chickens from Alema. He says some suppliers in the market had left the business after the New Year. Alema says that because there were fewer buyers for their day-old chicks they had to sell 900,000 eggs at two Birr each.
Some in the business, however, blame the large egg suppliers for the increase, particularly focusing on Elfora. Like everybody else,Elfora denies being the cause of the price increase. One of its officials stated: “This is a free market and it is not ethical to fix prices in a way that will harm ordinary customers.”
Elfora, established in 1997, is a member of MIDROC technology group. According to its website it has the capacity to produce 50 million eggs per year.
“The price hike may be a result of high demand in the local market and the export of eggs by Elfora,” says Abdurahim Said, communication officer at Ministry of Trade (MoT).
Traders claim that there is a shortage of supply, both in exotic (yeferenj) as well as indigenous (yehabesha) eggs, even though eggs, particularly of the indigenous variety, are to be found in nearly all places.
According to the statistics from Central Statistics Agency (CSA), the number of eggs supplied nationally was 98.3 million in 2010-2011, decreasing to 94.7 million and 93.1 million over the following year, increasing to 101 million eggs in 2013-2014. Other sources give 96 million eggs for 2013-2014.
In 2013-2014, according to the CSA, the total egg production in Amhara, Oromia, Tigray and the Southern regional states was 25.1 million, 37.9 million, 9.5 million and 14.2 million. Some traders say that most of the supply of indigenous eggs to the Addis Abeba markets comes from Gonder, Wollo, and Gojjam, whose total production, according to the CSA, was 6.5 million, 5.2 million, and seven million eggs, respectively.
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