Companies entering the lower-income consumer market often adapt existing products to meet lower-income consumers’ needs—in particular, redesigning the product to improve affordability. One way to do this is to simply replace more expensive ingredients with cheaper alternatives, or omit certain ingredients altogether.
Good nutrition has a hugely positive impact on health and other social goals, like educational attainment and work productivity – but the sector remains under-financed relative to its potential. How can we change this?
The pressing need to improve environmental sustainability and resilience became manifest in Pakistan in 2022, when severe floods destroyed crops across two-thirds of the country’s food basket, contributing to surging food prices, lost incomes, and increased poverty and driving over 14 million people to be in need of emergency food assistance.
50 organisations representing the global nutrition and child health communities are calling on the executive board of the WHO to support the resolution "Accelerating efforts for preventing micronutrient deficiencies, spina bifida and other neural tube defects through safe and effective food fortification."
New research, published today in The Lancet Planetary Health, suggests the planetary health diet does not provide enough essential vitamins and minerals to nourish the global population. This is even more evident when looking at women of reproductive age (15–49 years) who have increased iron requirements due to menstruation. The planetary health diet provides just 55% of recommended iron intakes for this population.
Last week, the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition’s presented its new 5-year strategy which aims to amplify the growing urgency and awareness of the importance of transforming our food systems to tackle both human development and planetary needs.
Given these complex motivations, as well as the other constraints that consumers on lower incomes often face, what can firms do to meet them? The BMR project undertook a systematic review of existing research and evidence to find out. It revealed a few core areas for focus: product, marketing, and distribution.
We at GAIN certainly believe data for food systems are important generally and for our own work and we invest in it. There are four recent reports that we have contributed to that I would like to draw your attention to.
Research published today in Lancet Global Health indicates that 1 in 2 preschool-aged children and 2 in 3 women of reproductive age worldwide are affected by vitamin and mineral deficiencies (often referred to as "hidden hunger").
1 in 2 people reading this article are likely experiencing hidden hunger, in other words a lack of essential vitamins and minerals. That matters because these "micronutrients" are the micro drivers of functions such as our immune systems which keep us safe and healthy.
