Nearly 950 processed food products across five product categories (maize and other flour products, packaged rice, dairy, fruit juices, and poultry) were identified in Dar es Salaam, Arusha, and Mwanza retail outlets. 2. Tanzanian firms dominate maize, blended, and other flour product availability in all three cities – there has been a rapid proliferation of micro‐firms competing on price, and the rise of small to medium size firms investing in quality differentiation and marketing. Tanzanian firms have a respectable presence in the market for dairy, juice, and packaged rice products, but are generally overshadowed by imports. However regional firms (Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, and Somalia) are competitive with international firms in the Tanzanian market.

Nearly 500 processed food products across five product categories (milled grains, packaged rice, dairy, fruit juices, and poultry) were identified in Dar es Salaam retail outlets; Contrary to common views, local and regional processing – not imports from outside the continent - dominate this market; Branding has expanded dramatically in the city in recent years. Branded maize meal now dominates in all retail outlet types; over 50 branded blended flour products can be found; even 20 brands of packaged rice can now be found, though currently limited to supermarket chains;

Nearly 500 processed food products across five product categories (milled grains, packaged rice, dairy, fruit juices, and poultry) were identified in Dar es Salaam retail outlets; Contrary to common views, local and regional processing – not imports from outside the continent - dominate this market; Branding has expanded dramatically in the city in recent years. Branded maize meal now dominates in all retail outlet types; over 50 branded blended flour products can be found; even 20 brands of packaged rice can now be found, though currently limited to supermarket chains;

The objective of processed food inventories is to develop a quick sense for (a) the range of processed foods available for sale at retail in urban markets, and (b) the number and relative prevalence of companies and products that are (i) manufactured locally, (ii) imported from regional neighbors, and (iii) imported from the “world market.”1 The emphasis is on numbers of products and companies; no attempt is made to estimate volumes. Limiting the objectives in this way allows the work to generate valid data without statistical sampling, which results in much quicker data collection and much lower cost. Typically such an inventory would be done only as the first step in a broader research program that will later collect more detailed quantitative data based on statistical samples.