Muluwork Tesfaw runs a small shop in Mergech kebele, East Gojam, Ethiopia. When health extension workers—government employees who provide primary health education and services at village level—approached her about selling complementary food for infants, she saw an opportunity. This isn’t just about one entrepreneur. It’s about building the market systems that make nutrition services sustainable and accessible long-term.
Selam Tesfaw, 40, now walks to Muluwork’s shop to buy complementary food for her youngest daughter, Hanna. “Instead of preparing it myself, I’d rather buy it from the shop because it saves me time and energy,” she said.
Health extension workers teach mothers how to prepare complementary food for infants and young children. Some mothers implement what they learned, but most do not buy all the ingredients and prepare it themselves. This is the gap that programmes often miss: knowledge doesn’t automatically translate into practice when the enabling market infrastructure doesn’t exist.
Muluwork saw this gap as a business opportunity. She started with 15 kilos of complementary food and sold it all in a couple of months. She did not make the profit she expected because the community does not yet have full awareness of complementary food. “I don’t want to worry about the profit now, because I know I am selling something beneficial to the community,” she said. “The more people get accustomed to it, I know I will be able to make a profit then. And I will increase my production to 50-100 kilos.”
Muluwork did not have awareness of nutrition before health extension workers approached her. “Having this nutritious meal helps children to be healthy and it prevents stunting. I want to learn more about raising healthy children,” she said. “In my community, I wish to see children being fed proper nutrition so that they can grow physically and mentally healthy.”
Selling the complementary food has created an additional source of income. Beyond her shop, she also has livestock (one ox, three sheep, one donkey) and two chickens whose eggs she sells at the shop.
Muluwork is not focused on immediate profits. She understands that building demand for nutrition products takes time. As awareness increases, she expects sales to grow. “When individuals’ lives are changed, the country as a whole can change,” she said. “If healthy children are raised, they will have a better future.”
Max Foundation’s Healthy Village approach in Ethiopia, implemented in partnership with Plan International in Tigray region, and with iDE in East Gojam, s strengthens child health outcomes by combining nutrition, WASH, and maternal health interventions with systems strengthening,including through local entrepreneurship—so that sustainable delivery infrastructure remains embedded in community economies.