In the second episode of our Extraordinary Eggs series, we will dive into a sustainable and innovative solution for egg production and consumption in LMIC; the Egg Hub model. How was this model identified and how does it even work? We will get first-hand insights from the implementors and results of the Egg Hub model in Malawi. In Part 2, we discuss the progress made in increasing egg consumption, behavior change, and the impact of marketing campaigns. We also highlight the positive effects of the Egg Hub model on the livelihoods of farmers and its potential for scalability in different countries.
In the second episode of our Extraordinary Eggs series, we will dive into a sustainable and innovative solution for egg production and consumption in LMIC; the Egg Hub model. How was this model identified and how does it even work? We will get first-hand insights from the implementors and results of the Egg Hub model in Malawi.
In Part 2, we discuss the progress made in increasing egg consumption, behavior change, and the impact of marketing campaigns. We also highlight the positive effects of the Egg Hub model on the livelihoods of farmers and its potential for scalability in different countries.
00:00 Introduction to the Egg Hub's Impact in Malawi
00:40 The Impact of Egg Consumption in Malawi
01:11 The Role of Social Marketing in Increasing Egg Consumption
04:09 The Economic Impact of the Egg Hub on Farmers
05:19 News Update: The SOFI Report and the Egg Hub Model
06:17 The Egg Hub Model's Impact on Farmers' Livelihoods
09:58 The Scalability of the Egg Hub Model
15:58 Key Takeaways and Future Plans for the Egg Hub
18:22 Conclusion
[00:00:00]
Kesso Gabrielle van Zutphen: Welcome back to the second part of episode two in our Extraordinary Egg series where we're zooming in on the Egg Hub's rollout in Malawi. So before the break, we laid out the hurdles faced by the egg producers in LMIC and introduced the Forward Thinking Egg Hub model. Now we're eager to dive into how this initiative has made a real difference in the lives of farmers and consumers alike. It's great to pick up a conversation with Maya Stewart and Srujith Lingala. So without any more waiting, let's get right to it. But this time we're kicking off with Mathilda who is ready to set the stage with a number that's short to spark our conversation on results. Over to you, Mathilda.
Mathilda Freymond: Thanks, Kesso. So today's number of the day is nine. Nine eggs per capita per month. This is how many eggs are being consumed by women and children in Malawian communities purchasing their eggs from Egg Hub. This number has increased [00:01:00] from two eggs per person per month up to nine. Srujith, this is wonderful progress. Could you share with us some more results from the consumer's side and behavior change you've observed?
Srujith Lingala: Of course. Thank you so much, Mathilda, for kicking us off. Despite an increased supply of eggs after the production of the eggs by the small holder farmers commenced, we have seen that egg consumption did not really increase in the desired way as visitors continue to get the lion's share of the eggs in the households and also the male members of the household. So, if our podcast listeners remember from the previous segment, we have understood and listened to our beneficiaries, our target beneficiaries, and realized that Malawian mothers were willing to do more and find newer ways to keep their families healthy and happy. And it is with this information that we developed the Big Campaign idea, which is "Grab every opportunity to make your family healthy and happy." [00:02:00] And that was a big idea. And then the eggs coming out of the Egg Hub were branded as Zonse Momo Eggs. In Chichewa, Zonse Momo means self-contained, all encompassing, and it really set a positive and empowering tone. And the campaign creatives were really wonderful in the way that it communicated a healthy, happy child who is eating eggs. And the targeted social marketing campaign was launched as a mix of mass media, interpersonal and point of sale interventions for six months. But most importantly and crucially is being able to engage the village health workers to be able to communicate to the pregnant women, the lactating women and mothers of children under five, about the importance of consuming eggs. And to effectively measure the impact of this campaign, we hired a Malawi based agency to conduct an independent evaluation of the demand creation marketing campaign. And what we realized through this particular [00:03:00] monitoring and evaluation process, is that the campaign had a positive impact on awareness, egg purchasing and consumption. The three things within the target demographic of mothers and young children. And what we did is we collected the data at three points at the baseline, before the campaign was launched, at the midline during the campaign, and at the end line after the campaign ended. And the same people were interviewed at each time point. And overall the social marketing campaign and interventions increased the consumption of eggs. Over half of our target audience ate eggs twice or more a week at the end of the project. And compare this to only 12% at baseline. So at baseline, out of a hundred people, only 12 people ate eggs twice or more, and that number increased to 51% or 51 people at the end of the campaign. And only 7% did not eat eggs at all at endline. And compare that to [00:04:00] 55% at baseline. And furthermore, increased availability and consumption of eggs did have a ripple effect on dietary patterns as well.
Kesso Gabrielle van Zutphen: Thank you Srujith. Maya, I'm looking to you. Anything you want to say when you hear these amazing numbers?
Maya Stewart: I think numbers, I'm a number person. Numbers speak for itself. For me as an implementing partner of the Egg Hub, what really resonates is the fact that the consumption numbers have increased, which was our primary objective. How can we increase the number of eggs consumed at household level?
Because this has a ripple effect, not only for the nutrition of the community, but also for the farmer themselves, who are the ones who are rearing the birds. So I, as hub manager, I would like to make sure that my consumers, which are the smallholder farmers of the Egg Hub are making money.
And the only way for them to make money and grow is by making sure that demand grows. As demand grows, money goes into people's pockets, which also benefits the farmers and they can be able to [00:05:00] increase their stocks based on demand. So not just based on random assumptions, but there's actual demand where people are coming to the farmers' households asking for eggs, and they don't have enough, and that's when they call us and say, "Can we bump up our numbers?"
That's when we know the model is working.
Kesso Gabrielle van Zutphen: And now it's time to move to our newscast. I believe Jordie has some interesting updates to share. Over to you, Jordie.
Jordie Fischer: The State of food Security and Nutrition in the World, known as the SOFI Report, is an annual flagship report that reports on the number of undernourished people around the world, and it advocates for strategies against hunger and malnutrition. In this year's recently published report entitled Urbanization, AgriFood System Transformation and Healthy Diets Across the Rural Urban Continuum to address the mega trend of urbanization worldwide. In chapter five of the report, it highlights policies and solutions to leverage AgriFood system transformation. And the Egg Hub model was actually highlighted as an innovative business model to support consumer access [00:06:00] to healthy foods, alongside providing small scale farmers with market access and quality inputs, in what they called a scalable win-win solution for small scale producers and low income consumers.
Maya, it's wonderful to see the attention called to this innovative business model. You've already spoken on the ways in which the model positively affects consumers, but to elaborate a bit more on this win-win solution, what are some of the ways that the Egg Hub model has positively impacted the livelihood of farmers in Malawi?
Maya Stewart: Thank you Jordie, and I go back to numbers. It all comes down to numbers again. In the case of the Malawi farmer, If they were not doing any form of egg production, they would typically be focusing on rain fed agriculture. Malawi is 90% dependent on agriculture by majority of the population of the country. In the cases of what we are going through, not just in Malawi, but worldwide, climate change is impacting everyone.
And in the case of the farmer, the agricultural farmer, a time, like right now in [00:07:00] Malawi, we're undergoing a drought. This means that if you had already planned to plant your tobacco or your soya or your maize, chances are that the germination process will not be successful.
And if it is, there will be opportunities of very, very low productivity as a result of stunted growth. So, where does the Egg Hub come in and how is it a win-win solution? The Egg Hub model on its own is a sustainable income generating activity. Specifically focusing on eggs. And in this particular case, the eggs are being produced by over a thousand birds. This results in at least 900 eggs are being produced every single day for at least one year to up to one and a half years. This means the farmer is not waiting for rains. We only have one annual rainy season in the country, but as a result, they're actually earning an income every single day for 365 days. Whereas when they wait for the rains to come, whether they come or not, that means they're only going to get an income [00:08:00] two months within a period of 12 months in a year. So it's quite unfair that you have to labor for so many days, so many hours and just wait for a good harvest. And we pray that it is a good harvest, because chances are you might not make that income. In the case of the Egg Hub, we're giving them an opportunity to earn that money every single day. Because we've also gone the other side. So this is on the demand side. They're generating or they're producing eggs on a daily basis, whereas their consumers are consuming the eggs every single day, and the demand is growing again every single day. So the farmer can be in a position to completely stop focusing on rain fed agriculture. This is not something that we promote, but we're giving them an opportunity. In the event that rain fed agriculture does not work, they have a plan B, which right now for many of the farmers in the Egg Hub has become their plan A. Their plan A, which is the Egg Hub model, is actually supporting their other farming activities. And for those who feel that [00:09:00] farming is not part and parcel of their income generating activities anymore, most of them invest in other income earning streams. Some of them actually put money into buying cell phones and reselling that across the community within where they stay and we're giving them something that I want to say is bankable. Whereas chickens is something that is giving them eggs on a daily basis, they can go and access loans. In the case of Grace that Srujith mentioned earlier, Grace can be able to go and access a grant. If this was rain fed agriculture, it would be a completely different story. Thank you.
Kesso Gabrielle van Zutphen: I. . Think what you're saying here, Maya, is really important. It really hits home with, you know, everything that's happening with COP 28. It's all about diversifying, but the Egg Hub's approach, moving away from risky rain dependent crops to a more steady egg production, really is a way to move forward, I believe, for Grace and many more Graces hopefully. So, we look forward to that. And now [00:10:00] we are coming to our second round of questions, which will look at the scalability of the Egg Hub model. A very important topic, Maya, again, can you break down for us why the Egg Hub works in a country like Malawi and what are the key elements on the ground that are needed for it to work?
Maya Stewart: For the question of sustainability, how does it work in Malawi? I think it comes down to infrastructure. I think that's where we won, by engaging rural farmers. The typical rural farmer lives away from the main roads of Malawi. So we do have good infrastructure countrywide.
We have the major roads, the M1 up to M4. These basically connect the entire country, road to road. But the moment you go off road, we're now talking rural Malawi. The roads are not that good. They are graded by, you know, tractors, but at the same time when the rains come a similar time, like what we're going through right now, those roads can become very difficult to pass through or even very impassable. In that particular case, the concept [00:11:00] of having the eggs right at village level then made sense. The reason I say that is because we do have a lot of players in the market, and this is not just in Malawi, but in any other of the countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, we have the major producers that are capable of producing millions of eggs on a daily basis.
But why isn't that egg reaching the rural areas of respective countries? And this is purely because our infrastructure is not geared for that. If somebody is living 10, 15 kilometers away from the four main roads in Malawi, that means they're not able to access that egg because the eggs will most likely be where the main roads are.
So this is where most of our trading centers are located, and as a result, the household members would have to walk 10, 15 kilometers every day just to go and purchase these eggs. So it becomes unattractive, whereas what we've offered them is putting the eggs right at their doorsteps. A typical village in Malawi holds about a thousand households, and that means you've got access to a thousand people coming directly to your farm and accessing the eggs [00:12:00] versus walking 10, 15 kilometers away just to access the eggs.
If you can find that egg right by your neighbor's household, there's no need for you to spend that time. That can be used for educating your children or taking care of the kids. But in the case of farmers in Malawi, tending to their gardens is also a very high priority.
Kesso Gabrielle van Zutphen: Now we've learned quite a bit about the Egg Hub model and it seems that its impacts are far reaching. Now, Srujith. In your view, can this model go beyond Malawi's borders? What's key to adapting it to different contexts and different countries?
Srujith Lingala: Thanks, Kesso. I'll go back to the first question you asked me. You asked me what are the elements that helped me identify a potentially successful business model? And I said that we've done it based on four criteria. One is impact, relevance, sustainability, and fourth, the most important is scalability. And when we developed the Egg Hub model, it was very important [00:13:00] for us from the very beginning that the model that we are developing and piloting in Malawi needed to be scaled beyond a single geography. It needed to be a scalable solution. And the Malawi model proved beyond all doubt that Egg Hub can make eggs cheaper, accessible, and easily available to rural communities and peri-urban communities. And moreover, farmers increased their incomes and implemented better biosecurity practices when you compare it to a backyard setting. And it is these elements that really paved the way for replication of the model. In 2020 and 2021, during the peak of the pandemic, when supply chains broke down, when communities were isolated and food security was an issue, our partners were able to successfully implement the Egg Hubs in Peru and Brazil.
And that really was quite helpful for the [00:14:00] communities, but also validated the scalability of the Egg Hub model. And in 2022, we have replicated and implemented the model also in Ethiopia with the help of our partners, Children's Investment Fund Foundation, and also SNV. And, the four Egg Hub models in Peru, Brazil, Ethiopia, and Malawi are today producing a total of 40 million eggs annually and benefiting more than a million consumers. And thus, it is establishing its scalability in different geographies and also exhibiting the potential for a transformative impact at a global scale. It's not just these four countries. What we are really looking for and what we are very, very convinced is that this Egg Hub model can work across at scale and be that potential catalyzing tool to convert countries from egg deficiencies to egg sufficiencies. And the key factors contributing to the scale up of the Egg Hub model are [00:15:00] really its ability to contextualize itself to the specific problems of the geography. When I say this, we operate with a complete awareness that the problems that a small holder farmer in Malawi faces are different from a small holder farmer's challenges in Peru and Brazil.
The Egg Hub is able to adapt and contextualize itself to be able to solve the problems in both geographies, and it's also able to empower small holder farmers to compete alongside large scale producers, and it's aligning incentives across the value chain for all actors. It's not just for the small holder farmers, but it's also for the feed mills. It's also for the small holder farmers and the consumers in general. And thus it is providing a holistic solution for addressing malnutrition and also improving livelihoods in LMICs. Thank you.
Kesso Gabrielle van Zutphen: This was a perfect teaser for scaling up the Egg Hub. Thank you for bringing that up. And we are nearing the wrap up.
So I have one last [00:16:00] question for you, Maya. Reflecting on all your experience, what are the key takeaways from your work so far and how will these insights shape your plans for scaling up across Malawi?
Maya Stewart: Thanks for that question. From my experience, I feel that you know, expansion of the model is required because we are still far behind the typical consumption requirements for every household in Malawi. But how do we make sure that we do it properly, sustainably? From our experience in Malawi, I would suggest working with farmers who have a passion for farming. Not everybody, unfortunately can be a poultry farmer. It requires a lot of dedication because you're now probably transitioning from what was typically just land-based agriculture to now livestock agriculture. Livestock is a completely different ball game for the farmers, and for them to understand that this is something that requires a lot of attention, a lot of patience, it's something that has to come not just from the person admitting that they want to [00:17:00] become a poultry farmer, but also from their internal passion. They need to have that drive to say, I'm ready to go the extra mile. I'm ready to have this patience to keep going until we're successful.
The second thing is, because we're dealing with farming and we don't want focus on small scale farming. I don't like calling my farmers small holder farmers. To me, they're semi-commercial farmers. I would like them to dream big. Dream big, not just with me, but with themselves and with their families, and also within their community. One of the things we try to educate the farmers whenever we're onboarding them onto our program is to think beyond what they think they can achieve today and where they would like to go in the next four to five years. In the case of Grace, she's a perfect example. We started off with her at 1,200 birds. But she did have a plan. She had a grand master plan. Actually, we didn't expect it to be this grand. Neither did she, but she's ready to take on that challenge. Put an extra 10,000 birds on her farm as of today. She's got the facility. She's been saving money, buying [00:18:00] extra land, increasing the size of her chicken house and making sure that ultimately she's able to achieve her ultimate dream, which is just being, independent, as a farmer, as a woman farmer, and most importantly, also educating all the women around her area to dream big and not just focus on something small. She needs to look towards an ultimate goal. Thank you.
Kesso Gabrielle van Zutphen: Fantastic. Thank you so much, Maya, and just like that we're at the end of another eye-opening episode, so a huge, huge thank you to every single one of you for tuning into our Extraordinary Eggs series by Sight and life. A big applause to Maya and Srujith for sharing your expertise with us today. Really, thank you so much. Also, a heartfelt thanks to my co-host, Jordie and Mathilda for another great episode, and a big shout out as well to Rachel for all her work in comms and in promotion. So before you sign off make sure you're following Brain Food by Sight and Life for more thought provoking discussions. And don't hesitate to share our [00:19:00] podcast with your network. So that's a wrap for today. Wishing you all the best until we meet again, and keep in touch with Sight and Life through our social media channels.
Take care everyone, and see you next time. Bye.