Faffa’s roots have always been anchored in seeking to supply Ethiopia’s population with highly nutritious foods and ensure that children especially, during their growth and development years. The company continues to follow the legacy set by the original founders and hopes to achieve its vision and mission.

Tracing back, Faffa was established in 1962 as an Ethio-Swedish joint venture with the objective of reducing the risk of malnutrition among children in Ethiopia by providing low cost and high protein weaning food. In line with the liberalization policy of the Government, Faffa food Share Company was privatized in August 2009 to PETRAM Private Limited Company.

When Faffa was initially proposed it,

“was distributed (free of charge) as school lunch for two years to an area in Addis Ababa, in Ijaje (to 600 children) and in an adjacent village, Backo (150 children). In these sites the Faffa was very well accepted and appreciated. In the same two year study (212 children below 11 years in Ijajae provided with daily rations of FAFFA) there was a marked reduction of clinical signs of malnutrition, reduction in the prevalence of skin infections and diarrheal disease, a slight improvement in the weight for age and in the arm circumference and the subcutaneous fat layer. Not all this improvement could be attributed to Faffa but was apparently the result of a combination of the nourishing porridge and health education” (Hofvander, 2010: 30-31)

As a result of this, in 1974, the factory was expanded in a modern way with the investment of Birr 4.2 million provided by the Swedish Government. As a result the capacity exponentially rose from 400 MT / to1200MT/ annum. As the importance of the products increased, the factory was renovated and expanded in 1984 for the second time with an additional fund of Birr 4.4million donated by Swedish Government and contributed by the factory itself to meet the rising demand. The total capacity reached 21,600MT/annum.