MIDROC inaugurates Africa’s largest bakery

“The factory is symbolic of our path to prosperity”

P rime Minister Abiy Ahmed

Compiled By Mekonnen Teshome

ADDIS ABABA (June 25, 2020 ) : Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia this morning inaugurated Sheger Bread Factory, the largest bakery and flour factory with a capacity of baking 2 million loaves of breads every day in three shifts.

“The Sheger Bread Factory we inaugurated today and which took 10 months from conception to finalization is symbolic of our path to prosperity. Producing 80,000 pieces of bread per hour, availing it affordable prices will contribute to food security,” Abiy said. “The factory is symbolic of our path to prosperity.” Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed

Deputy Mayor of Addis Ababa City Takele Uma at the occasion thanked Owner and Chairman of MIDROC Ethiopia Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Al-Amoudi, the management and workers of MIDROC Construction Ethiopia as well as all those who contributed to the realization of the project.

It is stated that including those working in the factory some 3,400 people in Addis Ababa will get job at the factory and in the distributions of the bread across the four corners of the city.

Built for 900 million Br within a 9-month period, the state-of-the-art bakery has the capacity to make 1.6 million loaves of bread a day and 80,000 an hour.

The bakery, which uses automated machinery, will source flour from a plant that was built next to the bakery. Resting on 4.1ha, the bakery and the flour processing plant is located in Akaki Qality District. MIDROC imported the machinery for the bread and flour from Italy, while the transformers were shipped in from China.

The bakery has four silos each with a storage capacity of 30,000ql of wheat, 12 ovens, 13 mixers, and two cooling towers capable of cooling 140,000 loaves of bread a minute. It has 357 permanent employees, 50 janitors, 47 chauffeurs and 23 food vans each capable of carrying 24,000 loaves of bread at once.

The flour factory can produce 2,224ql of flour a day, from which the bakery uses 1,200ql, and the excess 1,024ql of flour will go to the market, according to Abennet Gebremeskel, CEO of the project management office and general manager at MIDROC Construction Ethiopia.

The flour factory will source its wheat supply from Horizon Plantation's farm and other cooperative unions, as well as through import.

The project was initiated by the Deputy Mayor, according to Feven Teshome, press secretary of the Addis Abeba City Administration Mayor's Office.

The Addis Abeba City Administration and Sheger Bread & Flour Factory, an industrial-scale bakery built by MIDROC, agreed to sale the products at reasonable prices.

The company has procured 150,000ql of wheat from Ukraine that will be used for three months of production. The first of six batches of the supply has reached the factory.

The plant consumes five megawatts of power during peak hours, according to electrical engineers of the Factory.It has three stand-alone generators that produce 3.2MW in total.

The Factory has so far prepared 23 food vans to distribute the bread to 10 districts throughout the capital. Unemployed youth are organised by the City's Job Creation and Enterprise Development Bureau across 116 weredas.