Agenda | Aug 03,2025
Weeks after the Easter holiday, Addis Abeba has slipped back into its ordinary pace. The holiday crowds have dissipated, shopfronts are quieter, and families have returned to work, school and routine.
Yet one habit from the season has lingered in living rooms and across dining tables. Visitors who once arrived with wine, soft drinks, fruit or neatly wrapped goods increasingly came with boxed cakes, decorated and ready to share. Repeated across neighbourhoods, it unveiled a shift in the city’s language of hospitality. Cake is becoming a visiting gift, less formal than wine and more immediate than traditional offerings.
In Piassa, Enrico Pastry, on General Wingate St., offers a window into the change. Established in the mid-1950s by Italian entrepreneur Enrico Lumini, Addis Abeba's oldest pastry shop has become part of its everyday food culture. The Easter rush has passed, but its trace remains in records and routines still measuring what the season revealed.
Manager Kidist Gebregziabher describes the period as strong but complicated.
“During Easter, demand was high,” she recalled.
However, the numbers were contradictory as revenue jumped from last year, but the number of cakes sold declined. Inflation did the work, with rising ingredient and operating costs and household strain pushing prices higher, changing what bakeries earn.
“Prices have gone up,” Kidist told Fortune. “Even though we earned more in value, we sold fewer cakes in number. Cake is becoming more of a luxury.”
Even so, demand held through the holiday, with Torta cakes the most popular choice. Customers ranged from children to older residents, giving the product broad appeal.
“There is always a spike after fasting ends,” she said. “People want something rich to mark the moment.”
Enrico has tried not to raise prices during peak seasons, a decision Kidist believes is meant to retain customer trust in a sensitive holiday market. But she sees a wider social shift that may matter as much as the sales figures.
“In Addis Abeba, cake is becoming the main gift when people visit,” she told Fortune.
For Wondosen Kebede, a 46-year-old father of three, the change is visible at the doorstep. He remembered when gifts followed a more predictable order.
“In the past, people brought fruits or wine,” he recalled. “Cake was something you ate in cafeterias, not something you carried to someone’s house.”
That separation has faded.
“Now most visitors come with cake,” he said. “It has become the first choice.”
The reasons are practical and emotional. Wine and imported gifts have become more expensive. Cake, though also affected by rising prices, remains manageable for many families and carries a different meaning.
“When someone brings cake, it feels more personal,” Wondosen stated. “You open it and share it immediately. It creates closeness.”
He now buys cakes weekly from Enrico for his children.
“It gives a familiar taste," he said. "And the price is still manageable.”
Fitsum Tesfaye, a 53-year-old catering professional, also sees the shift as more than a holiday fashion.
“During this Easter, cake was everywhere,” she said. “I brought cake when I visited others, too.”
For her, cake fits the urban household.
“In many homes, there are children,” she said. “Cake is something everyone can share.”
Unlike alcohol-based gifts, cake moves quickly to the centre of the table. It is sliced in front of guests, divided openly and consumed together.
“It creates a lighter atmosphere,” Fitsum said. “It brings people closer without much formality.”
Among younger residents, the habit appears less like a departure and more like the new normal. For someone like Sara Mamo, Easter made the change plain.
“Cake is now the normal gift,” she told Fortune.
She finds its symbolism is simple.
“It represents love," Sara said. "When you cut it and share it, it brings people together.”
Rising prices have not erased that appeal.
“We still buy it because it has become part of the celebration,” she said.
Samper Timoteos, 23, reads the change as generational. Cake suits that mood.
“Before, alcohol was used to show respect,” he observed. “Now the focus is family and children. It makes occasions feel complete. You see it everywhere now.”
For bakeries, the shift has brought opportunity and pressure. Koba Pastry & Bakery, part of Romina Group, has expanded quickly, opening several branches across Addis Abeba. According to its Marketing Manager, Musse Mulugeta, demand is rising as customers become familiar with the variety.
“Customers are becoming more aware of different cake types,” he told Fortune.
Koba imports vital ingredients, tests international recipes and adapts them for local tastes. Delivery services have widened their reach during holidays, when orders rise. To manage inflation, the company stocks ingredients early, hoping to avoid holiday price spikes. Its customers now include families, corporate clients and event organisers across the city.
The business case is clear, but the meaning of cake goes beyond volume. A week after Easter, what stood out was not only consumption but function. Cake is becoming part of how social ties are performed. It marks arrival, softens formality and gives guests and hosts something to share without ceremony.
For some entrepreneurs, the change has also made cake a craft of identity and reinvention. Mahder Solomon began at home, drawing, baking and experimenting before formal training in the United States and Dubai. She opened Occasion Cakes in Addis Abeba a decade ago and built a brand around themed designs, cakes shaped like objects, characters and scenes rather than standard forms.
From its outlet in the Bole Medhanialem neighbourhood, the business expanded across the city. Mahder still handles complex custom designs herself, especially realistic cakes. She saw the market widen sharply.
“A decade ago, options were limited,” she said. “Now Addis Abeba has many more varieties.”
Inflation has narrowed the room for error. Eggs and milk have become more expensive, forcing careful pricing. Mahder uses a base price per kilogram, adjusted for design complexity and labour. When a cake demands too much time, she either raises the price or recommends a simpler alternative.
Seasonality remains decisive, for holidays lift orders. Fasting periods reduce them, though vegan options partly offset them. But some events matter beyond the register. First birthdays and weddings, she noted, remain the most meaningful.
“They carry memory. People look back at those moments,” she said.
Not every baker operates with that scale. Lemlem Tadesse, with more than a decade of experience, built her career through hotels, training, and, later, a small baking business after winning recognition in a televised contest. She now teaches students while making cakes, often reinvesting earnings into training materials. She sees the same cultural turn.
“People have stopped bringing drinks,” she said. “They now bring sweets instead.”
But the market is harder at the smaller end. Orders have declined, and competition from informal bakers has intensified. Lemlem has not raised prices despite higher costs.
“The society can't afford more right now,” said Lemlem.
During fasting seasons, demand falls sharply, leaving gaps she often covers personally. Still, she remains, hoping stability will return with seasonal cycles.
For now, cake has not replaced tradition so much as recast it. Addis Abeba’s Easter visits showed how small choices can redraw social customs. The box carried through the door is a gift, a dessert and a signal at once. It is affordable for some, costly for others, profitable for bakeries and risky for small producers. Most of all, it is immediate. It is opened, cut and shared before the visit ends, placing the cake at the centre of a changing urban ritual.
Sociologists say such changes rarely arrive in clean lines. Sintayehu Yehun, a sociologist at Bahir Dar University, links the rise of cake gifting to trade, migration, education and especially media exposure.
“Globalisation plays a major role,” he said. “People are exposed to new ways of celebrating, and they adopt them.”
In urban settings, visibility accelerates the habit.
“Sometimes these practices are associated with modernity or improved economic status,” Sintayehu said.
But he warned against assuming permanence.
“These trends can change quickly depending on how cultural preferences evolve,” he told Fortune.
PUBLISHED ON
Apr 26,2026 [ VOL
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1356]
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