How Egyptians face a food crisis: With creativity ... and half a loaf

Cutting corners, shrinking portions, inventing substitutes – Egyptian families are pushing the limits of their creativity to meet the nutritional needs of their families amid unprecedented price rises this winter.

Facing soaring food costs and one of the world’s highest inflation rates due to Ukraine war-induced shortages and a devalued currency, Egyptians are trying to make up what they lack in purchasing power with ingenuity and sacrifice as prices go up – even by the hour.

Solutions range from homegrown chickens and shrinking loaves of bread to leaner, vegetarian feasts – even when hosting company.

“Many people in Cairo live day by day,” says Ahmed, a carpenter who, like others interviewed, gave only his first name. “With inflation and price rises, that means each day we are bringing home less and less food.”

One of the most visible global economic impacts of Russia’s war in Ukraine can be found here in Egypt. More specifically, it can be found in Egyptian bread, aysh, the lifeblood of Egyptian families.

Prewar Egypt, the biggest importer of wheat in the world, obtained 80% of its wheat from Ukraine and Russia. Now it sources from other Black Sea countries at a price several times higher: From January 2022 to December, flour prices here jumped from £4,700 (Egyptian) per ton to more than £11,000.

In an attempt to keep the staple affordable, bakers are downsizing – literally.

The small aysh, or pita, bread that was once 90 grams (3.17 ounces) is now half that. And what used to be a “large” loaf has dropped in weight from 180 grams to 85.

Many bread-reliant Egyptians are literally eating half what they used to.

“Everyone is complaining; they know the size is getting smaller and the price is the same, but what can we do?” says baker Mohammed, sliding a tray of dough made from government-price-controlled flour into an oven at his bakery in Manshiyat Nasr, a working-class Cairo neighborhood, in mid-November.

He and his daughter have had to impose their own austerity, he says, and have gone from eating chicken or other meat twice a week to twice a month. He shrugs. “We all have to make do.”

The rising cost of imported feed and the loss of Ukrainian corn have led to soaring poultry and beef prices. Many families have cut down daily meals of chicken or beef to once a week or once a month.

To impress a dinner guest and show off their hospitality, working-class Egyptians now brew up a lentil stew rather than cook a chicken. Yet even lentils, the old reliable “meat of the poor,” have gone up in price due to a rise in fuel and shipping costs, jumping from £10 per kilogram a few years ago to £60 now.

Grocery shops and butchers in Cairo hang handwritten signs in their windows with a request: “Please do not ask about discounts.”

But the hardships are not just from Russia’s war and the associated energy crisis.

A devaluation of the Egyptian pound in early December – the third of the year by the government, imposed in order to secure International Monetary Fund financing – meant Egypt’s currency was devalued by 36% in the course of 2022, affecting every commodity. Annual inflation hit 18.75% in November.

“It has completely changed how the market works, how much people buy, how much we order from suppliers, how suppliers prepare. We are all affected,” says Cairo grocer Youssef al-Sharqawi.

“Instead of buying a kilo of apples, people buy a single apple, a lone potato instead of a bag.”

Outside Mr. Sharqawi’s grocery store in Manshiyat Nasr, Um Omarka holds up a bag containing five carrots and a bell pepper.

While previously she would cook an oven-roasted saniya chicken and vegetables for dinner, the handful of produce in her bag would have to do for her, her husband, and three children today.

“See what your prices make us do?” she says to Mr. Sharqawi, half-jokingly.

Many families like hers now rely on cheese and eggs for protein; some parents say they regularly go to bed hungry to make sure their children eat.

“We can deal with hunger; the children come first,” Um Omarka says.

As a solution, some entrepreneurial Egyptians started raising chickens in makeshift coops on their apartment building roofs. By cutting out middlemen and transport costs, they could sell to their neighbors at a lower price.

Yet a 67% rise in imported animal feed prices in October rendered many of these ventures nonviable.

Struggling to find buyers for home-raised chickens, some residents are culling their chicks.

Poultry shopkeeper Fahd Abu Ahmed says he has never seen anything like it in his 10 years in the chicken business. He gestures to a caged chicken next to him.

“This chicken just sits there, getting more expensive,” he says, noting the per-kilogram price of the same chicken went up 14% in a matter of hours.

“Before, poultry was a sure thing. It was cheap and easy money; everyone was happy,” he says as he politely declines a haggling shopper’s offer.

“Now we can’t collect the money we need to pay the chicken hatchers for the next shipment.”

Even Egyptians in farming villages normally more cushioned from urban price hikes are having to cut corners due to the rising costs of fuel used to pump water, irrigate, and transport crops. Heat waves, too, have spoiled harvests.

“People are culling their chickens, [and] mango and date prices are going up even though they come from our own soil,” says farmer Mohammed, outside Luxor. “If it wasn’t for our vegetables and government-priced bread, many of us couldn’t find ways to feed our kids.”

The Egyptian government says much of a $3 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund secured in mid-December will be spent on social safety nets to help insulate the most vulnerable Egyptians from rising prices.

Others defer to an even higher power.

“We may not have much food,” Mostafa says as he walks out of a Cairo mosque after noon prayers, “but we have God. And God is generous.”

Hamada Elrasam contributed to this report.