Timely, actionable data is essential to the success of national large scale food fortification (LSFF) programmes. Most low and middle income (LMIC) countries currently rely on national surveys to inform their LSFF programmes. These national surveys are expensive and infrequent, making it difficult to assess quality and impact.
David Morgan, Senior Technical Specialist for Quality and Safety at GAIN, spoke on Intertek's Assurance in Action Podcast about the GAIN Premix Facility, what it is and how it works.
Too many people across Bangladesh are living with zinc deficiency. One proven and effective way to tackle this is through scaling up production and consumption of rice biofortified with zinc.
With the support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, GAIN is leading implementation of a pilot programme to develop a digitized system to ensure staple foods are fortified with the right levels of essential vitamins and minerals to support good health and nutrition. The system will also track the fortified foods to ensure they are reaching Nigerian consumers efficiently.
An estimated 2 billion people globally are affected by micronutrient deficiencies, while around one third of the global population is at risk of at least one micronutrient deficiency. Micronutrient deficiencies, also known as hidden hunger, can be linked to significant disease burden and economic loss.
The GAIN-IPAN LAoFM certification training course is structured into three (3) progressive competency levels (Foundational, Intermediate, and Advanced). This Course is tailored made for industry professionals, private candidates, and technical staff of corporate organizations.
Vitamins and minerals (micronutrients) have the power to unlock human potential around the world. But a staggering 3 billion people globally, perhaps more, cannot afford a healthy diet that delivers the micronutrients people need to survive and live healthy and productive lives.
Ensuring that all people can consume diets rich in vitamins and minerals is foundational to building a healthy food system and to achieving global goals. Large-scale food fortification (LSFF) is a powerful and established food systems intervention with a proven track record of virtually eliminating debilitating vitamin and mineral deficiencies as a public health concern.
The potential for biofortification to curb hidden hunger can be realised when there is a strong support system for businesses to trade. Key building blocks of the support system include consumers, development partners, the government, and financial institutions.
when fortification’s done right, payoffs are large in terms of improved nutritional status, cognition, and productivity – which is why it’s so widely implemented. And wherever it’s implemented, we need to know if it’s working. Ideally, we’d measure impact on reduced nutrient deficiencies or related health outcomes, but this can be difficult for reasons of cost or because of the time taken for fortification programmes to yield measurable impacts. So what do we do instead?
