Mixing millet into bread can save the country Sh37 billion in imports, reduce bread prices and diseases such as diabetes and obesity as well as provide a ready market for farmers in arid regions of the country.
The average Kenyan is expected to eat 18.6 kg of bread in 2024. This is expected to grow to 29.36 kg in 2029. Despite this growing demand, local wheat production has been falling by an average of 10 per cent annually for the last six years. This has left the country increasingly reliant on shipped-in wheat, importing a record Sh74.4 billion of the grain in 2022. This move to becoming an all-imported wheat country has driven the price of a 400-gram loaf of bread from Sh48 in 2013 to Sh62 in 2024.
Studies have shown that indigenous crops such as millet can substitute half of the wheat used in making bread with consumers still loving the taste. This provides an opportunity for bread manufacturers to half their production costs and reach even more consumers who can afford cheaper more nutritious breads while providing a market for Kenyan farmers growing the drought-resistant crop.
Bread made with millet flour tasted and felt almost the same as that made wholly from wheat. As well as having the same nutritional value, the bread had half as much gluten– a natural protein in wheat that can cause weight gain and obesity.
Gluten also makes it easier for bread makers to bake bread as it gives it elasticity and structure. Without gluten, millet bread tends to be denser, have a rough texture, an earthy flavour and may not rise as much as bread made with wheat flour. This means breadmakers have to add a binding agent such as eggs, chia, or flaxseed seeds as well as use wheat to hold the bread together and improve its texture and taste.
Millets release 30 per cent less sugar into the blood than wheat, while the sugars it releases are taken up by the body much more slowly preventing and managing diabetes.
Diabetes is among the 10 main causes of death and disability in Kenya and has increased by more than half between 2009 and 2019. The disease is projected to rise 250 per cent across Sub-Saharan Africa between 2021 and 2045.
Millet also contains fiber which improves digestion and ‘fills’ the stomach quicker preventing overeating.
As consumers look for healthy gluten-free products, millet flour sales are set to grow by 5.3 per cent to $7.8 billion by 2034.
Companies such as Milex Bread Master and AGT Foods in South Africa, BBROOD in Kenya, and Cake Flair Bakery in Nigeria are all leading the charge in developing partially millet based breads for consumers.
Millet also costs up to 40 less than maize to produce as well as being resistant to drought and capable of growing in arid and semi arid arease of the country with soils that have little nutrients.
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