We study household consumption of various categories of processed food, including ultra-processed food and meals away from home in Tanzania. We compare peri-urban versus hinterland rural areas, and large cities versus small towns. Three sets of findings stand out. (1) Contrary to the common view in Africa that processed food is mainly an urban middle-class phenomenon, we found it has penetrated the diets of the rural areas and the rural and urban poor. In rural areas, surprisingly 60% of food consumption comes from purchases in value terms, and processed food accounts for 76% of purchases and 47% of all food consumed. For the rural poor, purchased processed food is 38% of food consumption. In urban areas processed food's share of purchases (hence consumption) is 78%, similar for the rich and poor. (2) We found that ultra-processed food (such as sugar-sweetened beverages and cookies) and meals-away-from-home (MAFH) have emerged as important in urban as well as rural areas. As these foods tend to be high in oil, salt, and sugar, this is a health concern. The share of ultra-processed foods and MAFH is 21% in rural areas and 36% in cities albeit twice as high in large cities compared with small towns and among richer compared to poorer consumers. (3) Our regressions show the spread of processed food consumption in rural and urban areas, among the rich and poor, is driven mainly by opportunity costs of the time of women and men, and thus the pursuit of saving home-processing and cooking time, as well as food environment factors. As these drivers are long term trends this suggests processed food consumption will continue to grow.

中文翻译：

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坦桑尼亚大城市、小城镇和农村地区的加工食品和食品消费

我们研究了坦桑尼亚家庭对各种加工食品的消费，包括超加工食品和外出就餐。我们比较了城郊与内陆农村地区，以及大城市与小城镇。三组发现脱颖而出。(1) 与非洲普遍认为加工食品主要是城市中产阶级现象相反，我们发现它已经渗透到农村地区和城乡贫民的饮食中。在农村地区，令人惊讶的是，食品消费的 60% 来自价值购买，加工食品占购买量的 76%，占所有食品消费的 47%。对于农村贫困人口，购买的加工食品占食品消费量的 38%。在城市地区，加工食品的购买（即消费）份额为 78%，富人和穷人相似。(2) 我们发现超加工食品（如含糖饮料和饼干）和外出就餐（MAFH）在城市和农村地区变得越来越重要。由于这些食物往往富含油、盐和糖，这是一个健康问题。超加工食品和 MAFH 的比例在农村地区为 21%，在城市为 36%，尽管大城市是小城镇的两倍，富裕消费者是贫困消费者的两倍。(3) 我们的回归表明，农村和城市地区的加工食品消费在富人和穷人中的传播主要是由女性和男性的时间机会成本驱动的，因此追求节省家庭加工和烹饪时间，以及食物环境因素。由于这些驱动因素是长期趋势，这表明加工食品消费将继续增长。