Ethiopian conglomerate MIDROC, owned by one of the country’s wealthiest men, has opened the new $2.6m Sheger Bread & Flour industrial bakery capable of producing 1.6m loaves of bread per day. The site also houses a new flour mill that can process 222.4 tonnes per day.

The cornerstone for the Sheger Bread & Flour factory, which is in Addis Ababa, was laid in June 2019. The new bakery and flour mill is operated by subsidiary Horizon Plantations Plc. It features four silos, each reported to be capable of storing 3,000 tonnes of flour. The dough is processed by 13 mixers, feeding 12 industrial ovens. After baking, the bread is cooled in two towers that can cool 140,000 leaves each minute. The flour mill has a production capacity of 222.4 tonnes of flour each day, of which just under half will go to market. The remaining flour will be used by the bakery.

The factory will source its wheat from Horizon Plantations’ own farm, Ethiopian farming cooperatives and imported supplies from Eastern Europe. Horizon Plantations is also building a $5.8m tea processing plant on the same site. MIDROC is also building an edible oils processing plant in the Summit area of Addis Ababa.

MIDROC has interests across farming, food processing, education, engineering, property, mining and transport. It is also the owner of the Sheraton hotel in Addis and the Queen’s chain of supermarkets.