Summary
Fikir Food Processing was established in 2011 and is most well-known for its UNIC biscuit, which comes in a variety of flavors ranging from plain to apple-vanilla. Their vision is to grow their business based on principles of quality and contribution to the country’s economic development.
Investment Thesis
The wheat agro-processing and biscuit manufacturing sub-sectors have the potential for significant growth in a market where a noted gap exists between supply and demand, which is increasing due the increase in the country’s population.
As do most companies in Ethiopia, Fikir relies heavily on imports to cover goods that they cannot find consistently at the right quality in Ethiopia, including milk powder, oils, and food-grade plastic packaging. As such, one of their development goals is to start producing edible oil on a nearby property that they recently procured to decrease their dependence on imported oils. This is a priority product for the local government and presents an interesting investment case for consideration.
Producing and sourcing more local products will increase the company’s resiliency to navigate external economic shocks and decrease their dependence on foreign currency and imports, boosting their profitability.
Refugee Impact
A business expansion investment would support local job creation. With the appropriate RLI coaching, the company could employ more hosts and refugees living in the community. Furthermore, expansion could also help shift the company’s sourcing practices from imports to local smallholder refugee and host farmers.
The company’s endeavors to expand operations into edible oil production would support their operations, as well as other biscuit producers in the area through sale of locally produced, quality edible oil. Again, this is a space to engage smallholder refugee and host farmers as an income generating activity.
Management
Fikru Gardew, CEO