- Date
- 5th August 2026
- Categories
- Commercial Cooking
By Richard Sieff (Gamos Ltd./MECS), Jacob Fodio-Todd (Gamos Ltd./MECS), and Walter Kipruto (Independent Consultant).
Overview
Restaurants, eateries and street food vendors are widespread across Kenya. Yet, despite the commercial cooking sector’s prominence, its overall scale remains largely unknown, potentially limiting investment and opportunities to support livelihoods in this often overlooked but significant part of the economy. Previous estimates have relied on formal business records and likely undercount the substantial number of informal and micro- enterprises. Addressing this gap, MECS commissioned research to provide the first national-scale estimate, developing a replicable methodology that combines Google Maps listings, transect surveys, and geospatial modelling to capture both digitally listed businesses on Google Maps and non-digitally listed businesses, which may be more likely to be informal.
The study finds that Kenya has an estimated 352,000 commercial cooking businesses, collectively serving millions of customers each day, with over 85% not listed digitally. This highlights that a large portion of the sector may not be represented in existing datasets, impeding targeted policy, investment, and interventions. The findings also indicate that commercial cooking is a substantial productive use of energy (PUE) opportunity, given its scale, livelihood impacts, and implications for energy planning. The methodology is scalable and adaptable, enabling policymakers, investors, and stakeholders to better understand, plan for, and support this previously overlooked sector.
Introduction: the need for better data on commercial cooking
In many emerging economies, commercial cooking is among the most common business activities, supporting the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of individuals. As an indication of the importance of commercial cooking, the Nigerian National Bureau of Statistics found food consumed outside the home was responsible for the largest proportion of household expenditure, representing 11% of total household expenditure (or N4.59 trillion/$US3.3bn). Yet, despite the sector’s economic importance, there is limited literature and data on the size of commercial cooking markets, including the informal sector, which is likely to account for the majority of businesses in many countries. Where records exist, these tend to focus on formally registered businesses and therefore underrepresent the informal sector. This data deficit has significant implications, potentially deterring investment and limiting opportunities to support livelihoods, enhance productivity, and leverage the economic potential of this often overlooked but important part of the economy.
Definition. Commercial cooking organisations are broadly defined as businesses or individuals engaged in profit-led ventures that are both the site of food preparation and service; for instance restaurants, cafés, and street food vendors.
Methodological approach
Due to the lack of available statistics or reliable data on the size of the commercial cooking sector, the MECS programme, in consultation with Shell Foundation, commissioned a study in 2025 to develop a replicable methodology for estimating the total number and spatial distribution of commercial cooking businesses at a national or sub-national level. Undertaken by consultant Walter Kipruto, the study developed and applied this methodology in Kenya.
The resulting multi-step methodology combines digital platform data extraction, field-based validation, statistical modelling, and geospatial analysis. First, a nationwide dataset of food-related businesses listed on Google Maps was retrieved through a scraping exercise conducted across all counties and wards in Kenya. Transect surveys were then undertaken across sampled urban, peri-urban, and rural locations to verify the accuracy of digital listings and identify additional commercial cooking businesses without a digital presence (referred to for the purposes of the methodology as ‘non-digitally listed food vendors’). This process established indicative ratios between digitally listed and non-digitally listed food vendors, which were then combined with building footprint datasets, clustering analysis, and spatial extrapolation techniques to estimate the total number and distribution of commercial cooking businesses nationwide. By combining digital and geospatial datasets with targeted field validation, the approach enables nationwide estimation without the need for resource-intensive nationwide surveys.
The methodology was applied in Kenya, a focus of previous MECS research in this area, where an earlier literature review had indicated the rapid growth and increasing prominence of the commercial cooking sector. However, available estimates of the sector’s size were either lacking, incomplete, or contained limitations such as being based on the formal sector only, lacking national coverage, or failing to distinguish between commercial cooking and raw/fresh food businesses. These data limitations reinforced the need for this study.
Key findings: revealing Kenya’s 350,000 commercial cooking businesses
The application of the methodology in Kenya reveals the hidden scale of the sector and demonstrates the value of this innovative approach. The study estimates that Kenya has 352,000 commercial cooking businesses,demonstrating the substantial scale of the sector, its importance to livelihoods, and its significant role in Kenya’s cooking energy landscape. Over 85% of these businesses are not documented digitally on Google Maps, indicating that a large proportion may be informal or remain underrepresented in formal datasets. This is broadly consistent with estimates of the significant role of informal enterprises in Kenya’s wider economy.
This underscores how approaches capturing only formally registered businesses are likely to substantially underestimate the size of the commercial cooking sector. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first concerted attempt to determine the total number of commercial cooking businesses operating in Kenya, spanning both formal and informal enterprises, from high-end restaurants and small eateries to mobile cart food vendors.
Why this matters: livelihoods, energy, and investment
The findings suggest that Kenya’s commercial cooking sector is substantially larger than would be indicated by digital or formal business records alone, with potentially far-reaching implications. A 2026 MECS study of 200 cooking microenterprises found that each business employed an average of two people and served 50 customers daily. Applying these conservative benchmarks to the estimated ~350,000 businesses suggests that commercial cooking businesses may serve around 17.5 million people in Kenya per day (approximately one-third of the population) and employ approximately 700,000 people.
Understanding the scale and distribution of the sector can help inform investors, policymakers and other key stakeholders of the opportunities associated with supporting these businesses. It also strengthens the case for recognising cooking as a productive use of energy (PUE), particularly given that commercial cooking is often underrepresented in PUE solution lists. The data further suggests that if commercial cooking businesses transitioned away from polluting fuels to electric or other modern energy cooking solutions, the potential implications for livelihoods, health, air quality, and stimulating electricity demand growth (in the case of electric cooking) could be significant.
The methodology developed through this study provides a scalable, replicable, and cost-effective framework for estimating the size and spatial distribution of businesses that could be applied in other countries or at sub-national level where datasets are incomplete or unavailable.
Next steps: scaling the opportunity
The development and successful application of this innovative methodology opens up several opportunities to better understand and support transitions to modern energy cooking at scale in the commercial cooking sector. Key areas include:
- Expanding market understanding: Apply the methodology in other countries or sub-national contexts to inform policy, investment, and planning decisions. Further develop market data, segmentation approaches, and analytical methods to understand the scale, characteristics, and energy needs of different commercial cooking segments, enabling more targeted investment and scale-up interventions.
- Demonstrating the productive use of energy opportunity: Generate further evidence on the business, livelihood, productivity, health, and environmental benefits of clean cooking to strengthen the case for investment and scale-up, building on recent MECS–Shell Foundation research with women-led commercial cooking businesses in Kenya and Tanzania.
- Developing appropriate technologies and delivery models: Support innovation, user testing, financing, and business model development to enable durable, affordable, and high-capacity eCooking solutions that meet the operational needs of diverse commercial cooking businesses.
- Strengthening market ecosystems: Develop the skills, supply chains, and support networks needed by commercial cooking businesses and other market actors to enable sustainable growth of commercial cooking as a productive use of energy opportunity.
We welcome collaboration with researchers, policymakers, investors, and market actors interested in advancing commercial cooking transitions.
Further resources
For more information on the study, the final report is available on the MECS website.
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AI Disclaimer: Draft sections of the blog were reviewed for consistency using ChatGPT-5, with all output subsequently verified and edited by human checks.
Featured image, top: Visual summary of the study approach and its key findings (image generated with ChatGPT-5).