If you’re a frequent shopper at the Franklin store, you’ve probably noticed wooden pallets stacked high with large brown bags on the sales floor. These bags are filled with flour made from a grain called “teff,” a crop indigenous to Ethiopia that is the main ingredient used to make injera, a fermented flatbread that is widely eaten in Ethiopia and Eritrea. In the last year, Seward Co-op sold nearly 54,000 pounds of teff, about 96% packaged in bulk within those 25-pound brown bags. So where does the teff at Seward Co-op come from, and how is it such a heavyweight seller?
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Ethiopia is the world’s top producer of teff, a grain which comes from the millet family, but is much smaller than most millet crops. In fact, the name “teff” may have come from the Amharic word for “lost” because it is so small—the size of a poppy seed! Teff is a resilient plant and can survive well in both dry and overwatered soil. The climate under which teff has grown for thousands of years in the Horn of Africa is surprisingly similar to the climate in Idaho, which is the world’s second-leading producer of teff. In the 1970s, American biologist Wayne Carlson was working in Ethiopia on a public health project, where he was introduced to the local farmers’ preference for growing and consuming teff. Back in the United States, he worked in Idaho, which he recognized had similar climate and geologic conditions to where he was working in Ethiopia. As immigrants from East Africa became more populous in the U.S., Carlson wondered if teff might have a market in America. And so, nearly 40 years ago, Carlson began growing teff in Idaho under his company Maskal Teff.
Each year, Maskal Teff makes more than $1 million in sales, mostly from offering teff in grain and flour forms. Teff itself is thoroughly nutritious food, high in iron, fiber, protein, and more. Plus, it’s is gluten free, making it a great flour option for those with celiac disease or gluten sensitivities. Teff flour is used to make injera, the fermented flatbread that is a staple item in Ethiopian and Eritrean diets, but it can also be used to make other breads, cookies, and more. Teff can be incorporated into savory dishes, boiled as a porridge, or used in many other ways to offer an earthy, nutty flavor to dishes.
As part of working towards our Ends, Seward Co-op strives to offer culturally relevant foods to the communities we serve, and teff is a large part of that equation. Each year, the Seward Co-op Franklin store sells tens of thousands of pounds of teff flour, accounting for nearly 9% of total Bulk sales and more than half a percent of total store sales. As we work to make teff even more regularly available at the Franklin store, we are excited to continue to offer items that the surrounding communities hold as significant in their diets and preferences.