Adama sprouts local cooking oil factory

A local edible oil manufacturing company began distributing premium sunflower after the regulatory body certified its quality.
Owned by AB plc, the company is situated in Adama. It took three years to construct the factory. The manufacturing plant rests on 3200m2 plot of land.
“The company is established to produce100 percent pure refined, high grade oil,” said Selam Demisse, General Manager of the company.
According to the company manager, Ethiopian Conformity Assessment Agency got the certification after a rigorous process and laboratory tests of the actual product. The very promising brand is a result of two years of rigorous quality assurance carried out in its in-house laboratory which deploys a top-rated quality control system
The company sources all of its sunflower oil ingredients from the Black Sea region to produce SUNVITO edible oil, which is 100 percent pure sunflower oil.
The company is expected to meet 40 percent of the soft oil consumption demands in the Ethiopian market and will also supply the regional market through the export as an MoU has been signed with a Singapore-based company after its team of experts visited the facility.
To strengthen this effort, The company also planned to undertake expansion projects to produce specialized oils such as Olive Oil, Sesame Oil for export and other soft oils such as Soybean oil, Corn Oil and other Vegetable oils.
“Consumers in Ethiopia will get a healthy alternative in the new premium refined sunflower oil which has made its debut for the Ethiopians adding that the product during its first test-run, a week before the Ethiopian New Year, SUNVITO has received great acclaim in the market as well as consumers. Product during its first test-run, a week before the Ethiopian New Year, SUNVITO
The producers, AB Plc. employed over 200 people that will increase more when the company use its full capacity and finalized expansion.
For country like Ethiopia that mainly relies on imported palm oil from countries like Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore in order to satisfy its edible oil consumption, the joining of such local companies are vital as palm oil covers 96 percent of the total consumption and the country imported 73,434 liters of palm oil last fiscal year.
Only four percent is covered by a few domestic manufactures with low level of production capacity and other importers.
According to the figure from the Ministry of Trade, the countries spend over 600 USD for edible oil per annum.