It was a cloudy Sunday two weeks ago, not ideal for outdoor events. The grey sky quickly engrossed Addis Abeba as the rainy days set in. Yet, the dreary weather did little to deter thousands of people from making their way to the government-run Sunday markets spread across the capital.

With close to 30 white tents packed tightly together, the Sunday market around Megenagna was overwrought. Hundreds, if not thousands, of shoppers were in view early in the morning, hoping to take advantage of low prices for consumer goods. After all, these are seasons of runaway inflation eroding household income.

There stood a casually dressed man with a bag over his shoulder. Tadesse Hunegn, 35, was caught in a heated bargain with a trader in one of the tents. The loud words between them attracted the attention of those around - both shoppers and traders. Tadesse had made his way to the market from his home in the Gerji area. He wanted to buy body soap and food items such as pasta. He had hoped these would be available at prices cheaper than what retailers in his neighbourhood would charge. It was what he had heard city officials promised for Sunday markets.

Tadesse's high-pitched steal with the trader resulted from his frustration upon hearing the prices.

“I can't believe this,” Tadesse told Fortune.

The trader offered to sell a pack of pasta for prices barely different from what he would have paid if he had gone shopping nearer his home.

Tadesse's vexation is shared by millions of consumers, who saw their purchasing power steadily eroded by rampant inflation.

The pressure began picking up last August when headline inflation peaked above 30pc. It has not been abated, with each subsequent month registering higher figures. Last month, headline inflation was at 36.6pc, according to the latest report from the Ethiopian Statistics Service. Food inflation stood at 43pc, with cereals such as wheat, teff, and maize showing the highest jumps in their prices.

The prices of cereals are one of the most essential components in the Consumer Price Index (CPI), accounting for 23pc of the basket of goods surveyed.

The unrelenting inflationary pressure has forced consumers like Tadesse to reconsider their budget priorities and tighten their purse strings in a country where food accounts for 54pc of total household consumption expenditure.

The soaring food prices have become a global concern, particularly after Russia invaded Ukraine three months ago. Between them, these countries cover one-fourth of the world's wheat supply. The deep concern has led international policymakers to meet in Berlin, Germany, last week for a global food security summit. Worqneh Gebeyehu (PhD), secretary general of IGAD, told the summit that the number of food insecure people in the Horn of Africa rose by nine million to 49.4 million in just a month since May this year.

The Secretary General attributed 30pc of the price upsurge in the region to conflicts. His country is engrossed by a civil war in the north, a resurgent insurgency in the southwest, and violent conflicts elsewhere. A combination of a pandemic-induced business slowdown, drought and wide budget deficit due to an increase in recurrent budget (mostly defence) put consumers like Tadesse on the receiving end of the economic turmoil.

Tadesse earns a gross salary of 5,300 Br from his job, which he declined to elaborate on. He spends a quarter of his wages to pay for rent for a one-room dwelling he shares with his wife. His hopes that going to Sunday markets once a month would help him cut down on expenses have not panned out for him. His visit to Megenagna on June 19 proved his hope was misplaced.

Standing inside the tent behind a table laden with consumer items, Kefyalew Nigussie had no comforting words for Tadesse.

Kefyalew, sales officer of Edget Be-Hibret Consumer Cooperative, told buyers the prices for a pack of spaghetti 36 Br. It was two Birr lower than what kiosks in Tadesse's neighbourhood ask. A brand of soap was sold for 20 Br a bar, hardly different from what Tadesse would have paid elsewhere.

“It isn't our fault,” Kefyalew shouted, battling to be heard over the noise in around. “The factories and our suppliers increased their prices recently."

He claimed a shortage of inputs like wheat is to be blamed. However, Kefyalew saw consumers buy large quantities of food items and agricultural commodities, although demand for industrial products at the Sunday market was falling. Of the 10qtl of onion he had brought with him to market that day, only two remained by lunchtime.

Kefyalew's trade is a small part of a larger ambition by Mayor Adanech Abiebie and her team at the Addis Abeba City Administration to tame inflationary pressure in the market. In the absence of viable policy responses to fight back the vagaries of the market at the federal level, city officials resorted to shifting the blame on businesspeople for alleged hoarding and intermediaries for speculation. They were determined to weed out the intermediaries.

In October last year, they introduced a Sunday Market platform, hoping direct transactions between producers and consumers narrow the margins benefiting the latter.

Organised by the Addis Abeba Trade Bureau, in partnership with the city's Cooperative Agency, Sunday markets are dominated by the 148 consumer cooperative unions operating in the capital. They have received half a billion Birr this year from the city administration in a revolving fund to promote these markets.

The initiative had initially shown promise, providing a semblance of respite for the residents of a city where living costs have become unruly. Sellers had been offering consumer items at much lower prices. In its early days, a kilo of macaroni was cheaper by 10 Br than retail outlets offer at 65 Br. Municipal authorities' claimed Sunday markets helped reduce food prices by 30pc, on average. The low prices attracted large numbers of shoppers, forcing retailers elsewhere in the city to lower their prices.

The success was fleeting.

Recently, consumers such as Tadesse see commodity prices at the weekly markets are soaring.

However, for Mesfin Asefa, deputy head of the Addis Abeba Trade Bureau, the Sunday markets have successfully stabilised the prices of food items.

“This is why we decided to expand the initiative,” he said.

The Sunday Markets initiative is an extension of a scheme introduced to the capital more than a decade ago. Since 2010, the government has been providing subsidised food items such as wheat to low-income households, channelling the produce through cooperative outlets. The markets were launched at five locations in Addis Abeba at the beginning but ballooned to 96 in less than a year. Agricultural produce and industrial commodities valued at over 136 billion Br have been supplied through the weekly markets, according to information obtained from the Cooperative Agency.

However, the Sunday Markets benefit a particular stratum of the urban population. Those with higher incomes frequent the markets, while the poor are left out in the cold as even the slightly lower prices are simply beyond reach. Over the past decade, Ethiopia‘s economy has expanded rapidly, double-digit growth. Yet, the high food prices threaten to undo the benefits of economic gain, pushing more families deeper into the poverty trap.

Experts observed that a larger segment of the population is likely falling into the poverty trap due to inflationary shocks. Low-income and vulnerable households across the country are most prone to suffering from rising food prices, according to Atlaw Alemu (PhD), an economist.

The galloping inflation makes life hard, particularly for the urban destitute, that constitute part of the 30pc of the population living under the poverty line.

Almaz Mekuria, a resident of Addis Abeba, could be one of these. In her 60s, she lives with her two grandsons and a daughter who was recently deported from Saudi Arabia, empty-handed. Almaz's family lives in a one-bedroom house around Kotebe in Yeka District, for a subsistence living.