In a narrow room where he has piled up bags and bags of salt, each measuring 50Kg, Gashaw Guade has made a booth to serve as his work station in Merkato Chew Berenda. It was there that he was sitting and talking to his customers over the phone while his workers carried the bags and arranged them on the open spaces when Fortune visited his place on Thursday February 19, 2015.

Gashaw has been in the business of salt trading since 2011, taking over from his father. He receives the salt from distributors who bring it from Afdera, a salty lake in eastern Ethiopia, 820km from Addis Abeba in the Afar region, the major salt producing region in the country.

"I receive up to 400ql of salt every two weeks from two of my suppliers from whom I buy a quintal for 310 Br and sell for 320 Br," he says.

He has constant customers who come from different parts of the country to buy from him and they take from 20ql to 100ql at a time.

The salt that he sells is labeled with an expiration date and place of production.