Health Care Food Manufacturers PLC

Fortified Blended Foods at Health Care Food Manufacturers PLC

Ethiopia, East Africa

The Challenge:

Half a world from where they were manufactured, Insta-Pro extruders are helping an East African company answer the needs of nutritionally challenged children.

Belete Beyene, managing director of Health Care Food Manufacturers PLC, has been looking for solutions to micronutrient and protein shortages that stunted children’s growth since he went to work for Ethiopia’s joint nutrition Institute established with Swedish cooperation when he was 22.

"In the famine of 1975, I saw how a blend of corn, soya, and instant milk could help these children when malnutrition affects a huge number of the population. But at that time, despite having our own formula called Faffa which was produced on a limited scale, we relied on the imported blended food coming from the United States to mitigate this large scale problem," he remembers. Then he thought: why not have the corn and soybeans grow in large quantities in Ethiopia? Why not produce this corn/soya blend in Ethiopia?

By the next devastating drought, Beyene was running a government processing plant called the Faffa Factory, producing 33,000 tons of nutritional supplements per year.

"I thought we could produce more and that would have many benefits down on the supply chain for our farmers and for employment and we would be better prepared with local production capacity for the next famine and eventually insure food security," he says. "Then came the World Food Program’s intervention to supply Insta-Pro extruders to plants like our Faffa Factory on cash for/product bases."

Why Insta-Pro:

Ultimately, Belete’s vision led him to establish his own plant called Health Care Food Manufacturers and to go to Illinois to study soy processing. There, he saw the prototype Insta-Pro technology and bought his first Insta-Pro extruder for the first private corn/soy processing plant in Ethiopia. He went even further to implement Insta-Pro process technology to produce partially defatted soy, soy oil and textured protein.

The Results:

First he established his blending company to produce CSB and soya oil. Then he went on to establish a new therapeutic food processing plant based on his previous factory.

From an early goal of 40 tons per month production, Beyene’s company now produces 40 tons per day, and Beyene continues to rely on Insta-Pro extrusion technology.

"The Insta-Pro extruders are highly efficient and versatile. They can do many things and give us a better quality product," Beyene explains. "We get more continuous use from them without breakdowns, and they have a longer life. The most proven advantage of the Insta-Pro extruders is reliability and the maintenance of high capacity utilization."

Versatility is increasingly important as Beyene’s company has developed new products, including Plumpy-Nut® and Supplementary Plumpy® which are all produced at Hilina Enriched Foods Processing Center.

Designed to treat severe to acute malnutrition and moderate malnutrition, respectively, both extruded (precooked) and pastes are packaged in single-serving foil pouched form that children can tear open and squeeze to eat without the added challenge of adding water or cooking – a major attribute of Beyene’s company products.

"We believe this has saved millions of children," says Beyene, whose company now distributes products in Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, Somalia, Uganda, Rwanda, Djibouti, and Eritrea. “It is a great satisfaction to know that UNICEF and WFP have both adopted these products as official products to fight malnutrition.

"When it comes to CSB/soya oil and partially defatted soya, we have been using primarily the Insta-Pro extruders almost 22 years now," he says, "and hopefully we will be using Insta-Pro Extruders for new therapeutic formula developed and adopted for different uses."