Workforce Nutrition

Workforce Nutrition


GAIN’s Workforce Nutrition programme aims to improve the nutrition of workers and farmers in low- and middle-income countries and communities. It focuses on improving access to and demand for healthier diets using existing business structures as entry points (workplaces or supply chains). Employers and buyers in supply chains can play an important role in improving workers’ diets, ideally as part of a broader approach to worker well-being featuring living wages, gender empowerment and the promotion of healthy lifestyles. 

The programme builds on evidence showing employers also benefit from effective workforce nutrition programmes. Providing safe and healthy food choices at work can reduce the risk of non-communicable diseases and provide employees with enough energy and nutrients to perform tasks better: this in turn reduces rates of accidents and absenteeism, increases productivity, and decreases mistakes. Through the Workforce Nutrition Programme, and with the help of our partners, we have managed to touch the lives of thousands of workers, farmers and their families in sectors such as tea, cocoa, and garment manufacturing.

Our mission is to increase everyone's access to healthy meals. However, like with all health-related interventions, promoting nutrition in the workplace requires identifying and addressing a variety of sociocultural factors. Our latest working paper suggests that gender is one of the most essential factors, as it influences what, how, where, and whether a person eats, as well as other nutrition-related behaviors like breastfeeding and an individual's overall attitude towards health.

Our four-pillar framework for a successful evidence-based workforce nutrition programme includes: access to healthy food, breastfeeding support, nutrition related health checks with follow up dietary counselling, and nutrition education. 
In an effort to consolidate learning across various actors in this space and scale up these actions for transformational shifts in workplace environments, GAIN has partnered with the Consumer Goods Forum to launch the Workforce Nutrition Alliance. It works to bring access to and knowledge about healthy nutrition to +3 million employees in member organisations and supply chains by 2025.

Learn more about Workforce Nutrition Alliance.

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