Nairobi schoolchildren are finally getting chapatis under the county’s feeding programme, but the first look at the product has many Kenyans questioning whether the machine was the right call. A video of President Ruto’s chapati machine surfaced. More than a year after President William Ruto made a high-profile pledge to back the production of up to one million chapatis daily, Nairobi County has quietly put a new automated chapati machine to work at Toi Primary Kitchen. The equipment forms part of the Dishi na County school feeding initiative, which currently serves over 324,000 pupils across 230 public schools in 17 sub-counties. Each child contributes KSh5 per meal.
The story began in March 2025, when Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja appealed to Ruto for help in improving the quality of meals served to schoolchildren. Ruto responded with a pledge to support chapati production at scale, a commitment that immediately went viral and earned the president a string of playful nicknames from Kenyans online. The machine eventually procured by the county falls short of the one-million-chapatis-a-day target, with a reported output of between 6,000 and 8,000 chapatis per hour. County officials say the chapatis will be distributed to schools on a rotating timetable, giving each institution a designated day to receive the meal. Despite the milestone, footage of the chapatis rolling out of the machine has drawn widespread ridicule on social media. Many users described the chapatis as charred and visually unappealing, prompting a fresh wave of jokes at the government’s expense. Judith Odindo wrote: “Chapatis ama burnt offering.”
Danston Lubembe quipped: “They look like the bread that Jesus used for last super.” Dorothy Mukundi was more pointed in her criticism: “This is not chapati! They could have employed the locals to make the real chapos.” Sammuel Musyoka added: “Inakaa ngozi ya fisi! Machine, you can do better.” Cheserek Jonah simply stated: “Those are not chapatis kindly.” Anthony Mwaura Kariuki took a different angle entirely: “That’s a khubus machine not chapati. I am sure it was procured from Lebanon.” County officials have not publicly addressed the online criticism. The focus, according to the county, remains on improving meal quality and expanding access to more children across Nairobi, a goal that, for now, appears to be a work in progress given the reaction the chapatis have received.
