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Dubbed the 'new quinoa', teff, which was used to feed animals until recently, has also found favour with foodies who point to its nutty flavour and wide range of uses. But although it has made inroads with the A-list, the rest of us don't appear quite so keen to follow suit with Planet Organic's Toby Watts saying people still aren't fully aware of the health benefits. 'It has been a slow start,' he admits. 'We are often the first to offer new products so there is always a strong need to educate customers and this takes time, much the same as when we first listed quinoa and people pronounced itqui-no-a, but our customers are quick to catch on.'

He added: 'The market for gluten-free has soared in the past couple of years, but many retailers have turned to white rice and corn as a wheat substitute.

'What our customers are seeking are gluten-free wholegrain alternatives which offer much higher nutritional benefits and teff, like quinoa, fits the criteria.'

The nutritional talents of Teff

220 Triathlon Magazine

Move over quinoa, teff is the new super grain set to grab headlines by Roxanne Fisher

Tiny teff is the latest super grain to grab the imagination of the health conscious. Farmed in Ethiopia, it’s packed with nutrients and is versatile to boot…

Originating in North Africa, teff is sure to grab a few headlines in the coming months,and, while it’s available in some health food shops, we’re betting it won’t belong before it’s more prominently displayed between the brown rice and lentil son supermarket shelves. It ticks all the boxes a trendy alternative grain should – gluten-free, vintage(it’s from ancient agricultural stock) and packed with enough health benefits to make quinoa green with envy. Ethiopia Teff have been distributing the grain since 2010, but owner Sophie Sirak Kebede has been enjoying the benefits of teff all her life.

"I was consuming teff before I came to earth, in my mother’s womb," she says."It’s the smallest grain in the world, about the size of a full stop. This makes it very hard to damage and therefore much of the nutrition inside stays intact."

So what of these nutrition credentials? Here are some key reasons to make teff apart of your daily diet:

Calcium

Teff’s biggest claim is its impressive calcium content. With 17 times more calcium than whole wheat or barley, it’s the perfect dietary addition for those undergoing heavy training to help protect joints and bones and support muscle growth and function.

Low-GI

I won’t preach to the converted, we all know a low-GI diet is key for keeping blood sugar levels steady and sustaining energy throughout the day. Sophie recommends eating teff first thing to keep your energy up, ‘’You can eat teffas a breakfast cereal or prepare as a porridge with milk.

It’s particularly good for athletes because of its slow releasing energy.’’ To bolster taste she recommends adding dried fruit as her children do, which will also provide some immediate energy if you’re planning to exercise in the next30 minutes - two hours.

Protein

The amino acid composition of teff is similar to that of egg protein (apart from a lower lysine content). Like quinoa, teff is a complete protein and therefore is an excellent option for vegetarians. Experiment baking with teff to make healthy banana breads or muffins for the perfect after exercise snack, as it’s also high in carbohydrates, yet low in calories.

Magnesium,potassium, B vitamins AND vitamin C

You’re probably getting the picture that we could extol the virtues of teff’s nutritional content long after you’ve lost interest. Full of vitamin B1, 2,3and 6 – these water-soluble vitamins play crucial roles in energy production,making them vital for all athletes.

Exercise can deplete magnesium and potassium stores in the body so making sure you’re getting your daily dose is important. Finally, vitamin C is key in many biochemical pathways, supporting the immune system and aiding the absorption of iron - all vital to keep you performing at your best.

Read more about teff and other alternative grains at bbcgoodfood.com

The Sunday Times

A GRAIN used to make a flat bread that is a staple food in Ethiopia has been described as “the new quinoa” after gaining popularity in Britain. Flour made from teff, a gluten-free grain grown by more than 6m farmers in the African country, is stocked by eight British branches of Whole Foods, a US health food retailer, where 620g packets sell for £8.99. Ethiopia Teff, another company, sells teff flour, teff breakfast cereal, “puffed teff” for use in cereal bars and “teff meal” for baking. Now Marks & Spencer is among bigger retailers looking at selling products made from teff, which is reportedly favoured by the pop star Sting. The grain contains calcium, iron and protein.

The Guardian Claire Provost and Elissa Jobson in Addis Ababa

Mounds of teff dry in fields in Ethiopia. The gluten-free grain is used to make flour for injera, the national dish. Photograph: Julio Etchart/Alamy

At Addis Ababa airport, visitors are greeted by pictures of golden grains, minute ochre-red seeds and a group of men gathered around a giant pancake. Billboards boast: "Teff: the ultimate gluten-free crop !!! " Ethiopia is one of the world's poorest countries, well-known for its precarious food security situation.But it is also the native home of teff, a highly nutritious ancient grain increasingly finding its way into health-food shops and supermarkets in Europe and America.

Teff's tiny seeds – the size of poppy seeds – are high in calcium, iron and protein,and boast an impressive set of amino acids. Naturally gluten-free, the grain can substitute for wheat flour in anything from bread and pasta to waffles and pizza bases. Like quinoa, the Andean grain, teff's superb nutritional profile offers the promise of new and lucrative markets in the west. In Ethiopia, teff is a national obsession. Grown by an estimated 6.3 million farmers, fields of the crop cover more than 20% of all land under cultivation. Ground into flour and used to make injera, thespongy fermented flat bread that is basic to Ethiopian cuisine, the grain is central to many religious and cultural ceremonies. Across the country, and in neighbouring Eritrea, diners gather around large pieces of injera, which doubles as cutlery, scooping up stews and feeding one another as a sign of loyalty or friendship – a tradition known as Gurkha.

Outside diaspora communities in the west, teff has flown under the radar for decades.But growing appetite for traditional crops and booming health-food andgluten-free markets are breathing new life into the grain, increasingly touted as Ethiopia's "second gift to the world", after coffee.

Sophie Kebede, a London-based entrepreneur who, with her husband, owns Ethiopian Teff, a UK company specialising in the grain, says she was "flabbergasted"when she discovered its nutritional value. "I didn't know it was so sought after … I am of Ethiopian origin; I've been eating Injera all my life."

The gluten-free market is the backbone of Kebede's business. Today, Planet Organic shops in London stock 1kg bags of Ethiopian Teff flour (£7 each), while 300gpackets of its teff breakfast cereal sit alongside milled flax seed and organic,sugar-free Swiss muesli, and cost £5.44 The company also sells ready made,gluten-free teff bread with raisin, onion, sunflower and other varieties. (Teff is available at other UK stockists). As western consumers acquire a taste for teff, how to ensure that Ethiopia and its farmers benefit from new global markets is a critical question. Growing demand for so-called ancient grains has not always been a straightforward win for poor communities. In Bolivia and Peru, reports of rising incomes owing to the now-global quinoa trade have come alongside those of malnutrition and conflicts over land as farmers sell their entire crop to meet western demand.

The tiny seeds are rich in nutrients. Photograph: Elissa Jobson

Ethiopia's growing middle class is also pushing up demand for teff, and rising domestic prices over the past decade have put the grain out of reach of the poorest. Today, most small farmers sell the bulk of what they grow to consumers in the city.

This may have helped boost incomes in some rural areas but it has had nutritional consequences, says the government, as teff is the most nutritionally valuable grain in the country. Estimates suggest that while those in urban areas eat up to 61kg of teff a year, in rural areas, the figure is 20kg. The type consumed differs too: the wealthy almost exclusively eat the more expensive magna and white teff varieties; less well-off consumers tend to eat less-valuable red and mixed teff, and more than half combine it with cheaper cereals such as sorghum and maize.

The Ethiopian government wants to double teff production by 2015. Its strategy,published in 2013, argues that the grain could play an important role in school meals and emergency aid programmes, and help reduce malnutrition – particularly among children and adolescents.

It notes that teff is also gluten-free, so it is well suited to address growing global gluten-free demand, and calls on companies to start testing, promoting and mass manufacturing teff based products such as cakes and biscuits.

Though Ethiopia has a fast-growing economy, it remains on the UN's list of least developed countries. An estimated 20% of under-fives are malnourished or suffer stunted growth, and the UN's World Food Programme estimates the costs of chronic malnutrition could be worth 16.5% of GDP

The government's agricultural transformation agency aims to boost yields by developing improved varieties of the grain, along with new planting techniques and tools to reduce post-harvest losses.

The Syngenta Foundation, the non-profit arm of the Swiss seeds and pesticides company, has also joined the quest for increased teff production.

Government restrictions, instituted in 2006, forbid the export of raw teff grain,only allowing shipments of injera and other processed products. But this could change: the goal is to produce enough teff for domestic consumption and a strong export market, according to the government's strategy.

In Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, dozens of women painstakingly sift and mill teff at the factories of Mama Fresh Injera, one of the few domestic companies that exports teff products.

The Mama Fresh factory in Addis Ababa. The family firm has set its sights on the gluten-free market in the west. Photograph: Elissa Jobson

Mama Fresh is a family firm that has been selling injera to top restaurants and hotels in the Ethiopian capital for years. It also ships the flat bread to Finland, Germany, Sweden and the US, primarily for consumption by diaspora communities. But the company has its eye on the gluten-free market. It aims to double exports to America in 2014, and will soon start producing teff based pizzas, bread and cookies.

David Hallam, trade and markets director at the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization, says while there is money to be made from new global markets for traditional crops, governments have to support small-scale producers to ensure they share the benefits of increased trade.

"Typically,these products are going to go through many hands before they reach the shelves of Sainsbury's or wherever. There are [profit] margins at every step, and smallfarmers are not necessarily well placed to bargain with the bigger traders," says Hallam, who sees quinoa's popularity as a cautionary tale of how export opportunities can be a mixed blessing for poor countries.

Regassa Feyissa, an Ethiopian agricultural scientist and former head of the national Institute for Biodiversity, warns that without careful planning, increased teff production for export may displace other important crops for farmers. And efforts to boost production could benefit business interests at the expense of small farmers.

With little Ethiopian teff on the international market, farmers in the US haves tarted planting the crop. Farmers in Europe, Israel and Australia have also experimented with it.

Kebede says she gets her grain from farms in southern Europe, though she would prefer to source it from Ethiopia. "Teff is second nature to an Ethiopian; so who better to supply it? We have this sought after grain being grown in the country, so why can't an Ethiopian farmer benefit from this ?".

April 2012 Ethiopia Teff introduces new style packaging and Branding in time for the for coming Olympic games.

April 2012 Ethiopia Teff announces website facelift and the addition of Barclay card order precessing. This will speed up transaction times and improve online security