Fortification

Briefs

Photo of community health worker showing a mother (holding her young child) the MNP calendar

This brief discusses costing studies for nutrition interventions generally, and highlights how a cost-efficiency study can influence policy decisions.

Location: Uganda
Abdul Nuldin Katongole and Jolly Ruyonga, traders who work with maize millers, read a factsheet on food fortification.

From 2012 to 2017, the SPRING consolidated gains from consecutive successful USAID projects and made fortification the primary platform for delivering micronutrients to the population of...

Location: Uganda
A health worker takes arm circumference and weight measurements on a 2-3 year old child being held by his mother. The child is making a distressed face.

This brief describes SPRING’s challenges and achievements using the NACS approach in Uganda to integrate nutrition into the health care delivery system.

Location: Uganda

Reports

Cover photo: four teenage girls in their school uniforms, dancing and jumping as they pose for the camera.

Malnutrition among adolescents can adversely affect health and productivity in adult life; among school-going children, micronutrient deficiencies such as iron-deficiency anemia can reduce...

Keywords: Anemia, Fortification
Location: Uganda
Photo of a man pouring flour into a machine

From July 2016 to July 2017, Strengthening Partnerships, Results, and Innovations in Nutrition Globally (SPRING), USAID’s flagship multi-sectoral nutrition project, conducted interviews...

Keywords: Fortification
Location: Uganda
Maize mill employee Haruna Ssemakula carries a sack of maize flour to a waiting truck.

Mapping the maize millers was a nationwide exercise. The National Working Group on Food Fortification (NWGFF) approved the activity, which aimed to inform stakeholders about the status of...

Keywords: Fortification
Location: Uganda
Man teaches another man about nutrition

In May and July 2014, follow-up surveys to the 2013 SPRING household baseline survey were separately conducted in each region after a period of one year among the intervention (Kisoro and...

News

Mike Mazinga, a member of SPRING/Uganda staff, explains how SPRING played a role in encouraging production and consumption of fortified foods in Uganda.

SPRING/Uganda staff shared the project’s achievements at a legacy event in Kampala.

Photo: SPRING staff member Mike Mazinga presents on the current status of maize milling in Uganda.

In November 2017, SPRING/Uganda invited maize flour producers and other stakeholders to discuss challenges and opportunities in fortifying flour and learn about technology options for...

Keywords: Fortification, Anemia, Micronutrient
Location: Uganda
Four people sit around a table.

SPRING/Uganda transitions the chairmanship of the inspection and enforcement working group in the East Central and Southern Africa Health Community to Uganda National Bureau of Standards.

Keywords: Anemia, Fortification
Location: Uganda
Talian Grain Millers' Production Manager holds up a scoop of fortified maize flour

SPRING/Uganda trained maize millers to fortify maize flour and adopt good manufacturing practices.

Participants pose for a group picture outside the Family Choice Maize Mill

Adopting Sanku’s technology in Uganda will enable small- and medium-scale maize millers to fortify flour at a low cost.

Keywords: Fortification, Anemia
Location: Uganda, Tanzania
Receiving a certificate for competent testing of fortified foods

During an awards ceremony in Kampala, laboratories were recognized to do competent testing of fortified foods.

Keywords: Fortification
Location: Uganda
SPRING staff showing a bottle of fortified cooking oil to a mother holding her baby.

SPRING/Uganda participated in the expo to create awareness about the benefits of fortified foods.

Keywords: Fortification, Micronutrient
Location: Uganda
Data collectors learning to use GPS.

SPRING interviewed 64 Micronutrient Powder users and distributors to identify successes understand barriers they face in using and distributing MNP.

Mixing fortificant with maize flour.

Uganda’s Ministry of Health and SPRING hosted an Ethiopian delegation interested in Uganda's food fortification program.

Keywords: Fortification, Anemia
Location: Uganda

Videos

Two women sit and talk. One woman holds a packet of micronutrient powder and explains its benefits to the other woman.

This video provides an overview of SPRING/Uganda's work in micronutrient powders.

Student highlighted in red to depict prevalence of anemia among students

SPRING/Uganda developed “For Very Little, Gain More” as an advocacy video to improve school feeding through procurement of fortified maize flour for students’ meals. The video engages...

Keywords: Anemia, Fortification, Adolescents
Location: Uganda
Katoto tells a street vendor that eating a rolex made with fortified wheat and cooking oil is one way for customers to get essential nutrients like iron, zinc, and vitamin A.

Katoto is a popular animated character on Ugandan social media and television and an engaging figure for raising the public’s awareness of fortified foods. This cartoon builds on SPRING’s...

Keywords: Anemia, Fortification
Location: Uganda
Holding up smaller oil sachets

Levi Jean Kabatabarukye, the Quality Control Manager at BIDCO, shares the company's rationale for selling fortified oil in small sachets.

Keywords: Anemia, Fortification, Scale-up
Location: Uganda
Walking through the BIDCO factory

Levi Jean Kabatabarukye, the Quality Control Manager at BIDCO, describes the USAID-funded SPRING project's efforts to support industrial fortification in Uganda.

Keywords: Anemia, Fortification, Scale-up, Policy
Location: Uganda

Infographics

First page of the infographic - see PDF for contents

In Uganda, SPRING provides technical assistance and leadership at the national and district levels to help reduce stunting, micronutrient deficiencies, and anemia, particularly in children...

Keywords: Policy, Fortification
Location: Uganda

Galleries

Thomas Okoth and Justine Nabuuma of Uganda Industrial Research Institute (UIRI) perform an iron spot test on maize flour, to establish if the flour with the fortification logo is actually fortified.

Advocating for the fortification of major staple foods in Uganda is one way SPRING has contributed to the prevention and control of stunting and anemia.

Keywords: Fortification
Location: Uganda
Salima Muyodi a VHT teaches mothers and caretakers about MNP. MNP are an effective intervention for decreasing anemia in young children, but getting the benefits requires regular use of MNP from age 6 to 23 months.

SPRING/Uganda piloted two different methods of distributing micronutrient powders (MNP) to 22,234 children aged 6 - 23 months in Namutumba District.

Keywords: Anemia, Micronutrient, Fortification
Location: Uganda
Felix Broxchurch, the president of the Sanku project in Tanzania, explaining the unique features of the equipment.

Adopting Sanku’s technology in Uganda will enable small- and medium-scale maize millers to fortify flour at a low cost.

Keywords: Fortification, Anemia
Location: Uganda, Tanzania
BIDCO: Happy, Healthy Living sign

This past January, I visited the BIDCO factory with two colleagues from the SPRING/Uganda office for a first-hand look at how SPRING’s upstream work with the fortification industry helps to...

Keywords: Anemia, Fortification, Scale-up, Policy
Location: Uganda

Events

Agricultural demonstration on planting groundnuts in rows

Micronutrient deficiency continues to undermine public health and prosperity in developing countries.

Activities

Point-of-Use Fortification in Uganda

SPRING is supporting the rollout of a micronutrient power (MNP) program among children 6-23 months in one pilot district of Uganda.

Keywords: Fortification, Micronutrient, Anemia
Location: Uganda
child eating

At the national level, SPRING/Uganda supports the Government of Uganda to coordinate the implementation of industrial and home fortification efforts, and other activities related to the...

Keywords: Fortification
Location: Uganda

Pages

Resource Review Summaries

HarvestPlus developed a new strategic plan detailing key activities and resources needed for scaling up biofortification over the next five years. The strategy was informed by an evidence-...

Keywords: Anemia, Fortification

This study explored the impact of providing salt fortified with iron and iodine to Indian children in second grade on anemia and cognition. Baseline and endline data were collected from...

Keywords: Anemia, Fortification
Location: India

In this study, researchers compare sachet count or self-reporting forms to electronic devices for measuring adherence to daily home fortification with micronutrient powders (MNP) and...

Keywords: Anemia, Fortification, Micronutrient
Location: Kenya

This study examined three food fortification programs in Latin America to identify lessons learned for the design and implementation of successful fortification programming. Researchers...

Keywords: Anemia, Fortification

In this study, the authors investigated the impact of mandatory wheat flour fortification on micronutrient status among women aged 15–49 years and children 12–59 months of age in Yaoundé...

Keywords: Anemia, Fortification
Location: Cameroon

In efforts to provide a growing population with a sufficient quantity of healthy and nutritious foods, fortification has risen as a solution. However, rice fortification has yet to take...

Biofortification to address nutrient deficiencies unites agriculture and nutrition to improve the health and livelihoods of smallholder farming families – still the majority of the...

The African Union Commission considers biofortification to be of great importance in the fight against malnutrition. The Commission has committed to using biofortification as a central...

Researchers investigated the efficacy of Vita Mamba, a fortified peanut butter snack, in reducing anemia in school-aged children in rural Haiti. The findings indicated that children were...

Keywords: Anemia, Fortification
Location: Haiti

GAIN shares recent findings on the coverage of fortified foods in Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, and India. In Côte d’Ivoire, Nutribon, a complementary fortified food product for low income children...

Keywords: Fortification
Location: Ivory Coast, Ghana, India

The World Health Organization released global guidance on the fortification of maize flour and corn meal with vitamins and minerals as a feasible and cost-effective intervention for...

Keywords: Fortification

In Thailand, many of the local source foods do not meet the nutritional needs of children, which can lead to deficiencies in micronutrients such as iron – a major cause of anemia. Thai...

Keywords: Anemia, Micronutrient, Fortification
Location: Thailand

Micronutrient deficiencies are prevalent in crops and people in sub-Saharan Africa. Agronomic biofortification can increase yields and micronutrient contents of these crops, but there is a...

The government of Uganda has rolled-out five high iron bean varieties in an attempt to address national iron deficiency anemia especially among women, children, and infants. In Uganda,...

Keywords: Anemia, Agriculture, Fortification
Location: Uganda

HarvestPlus and partners continue to promote biofortification as a sustainable and effective method for improving the nutrition of vulnerable populations through enhanced staple crops. Its...

In Zimbabwe, the government has set national standards for food fortification to address micronutrient deficiencies, especially among children and pregnant women. Fortification efforts will...

Keywords: Anemia, Fortification
Location: Zimbabwe

In this study, researchers assessed absorption of therapeutic iron among children in Uganda that were given antimalarial treatment. Children aged 6-59 months with both malaria and anemia...

Keywords: Anemia, Fortification, Micronutrient
Location: Uganda

In this study, the authors tested the effectiveness of iron-biofortified beans to improve the iron status of women in Rwanda. The authors found an increase in hemoglobin and body iron...

An impaired ability to respond to dark conditions suggests Vitamin A deficiency. This article outlines result of a study conducted in Zambia, in which researchers tested consumption of...

Keywords: Fortification, Agriculture
Location: Zambia

In September 2015, GAIN and the Government of Tanzania co-hosted the first ever Global Summit on Food Fortification in Arusha, Tanzania. This supplement summarizes the proceedings of the...

Keywords: Anemia, Fortification
Location: Tanzania

In this video, Binu Cherian and Parminder Virk of HarvestPlus discuss why biofortification can be an effective measure to help address micronutrient deficiencies, especially as a...

HarvestPlus is a global leader in the development of more nutritious and micronutrient-rich varieties of staple food crops. This process, known as biofortification, has proven to be an...

SPRING, UNICEF, and the World Food Program (WFP), in collaboration with the Ugandan Ministry of Health (MOH), launched a home fortification program as a strategy to combat micronutrient...

Professionals, organizations, and stakeholders will come together for the Micronutrient Forum Global Conference on October 24-28, 2016, in Cancun, Mexico. The focus for this year’s forum...

In April, the World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations will convene a technical consultation on Staple crops biofortified with vitamins and...

Keywords: Fortification, Anemia

The Food Fortification Initiative conducted a study to evaluate the impact of flour fortification programs on anemia prevalence in non-pregnant women in twelve countries. Findings indicated...

Keywords: Anemia, Fortification

Some 2 billion people suffer from hidden hunger caused by infections and diets lacking in essential micronutrients, such as, vitamin A, iron, and zinc. This two page brief explores how...

This blog introduces the special issue of the Journal of Development Studies) on “Farm-Level Pathways to Improved Nutritional Status,” which features 8 studies exploring the linkage between...

This SPRING webinar explored biofortification, with a focus on implementation and incorporating it into development projects. HarvestPlus experts explained their implementation process,...

Biofortification is among the highest value-for-money investments for economic development and reducing micronutrient deficiencies. In this webinar, Director of HarvestPlus Dr. Howarth...

In September 2015, officials and experts met in Tanzania to discuss the future of food fortification and its potential in nutrition programs. This article details initiatives by the...

Keywords: Fortification
Location: Tanzania

This article explores the growth in biofortification to address hidden hunger and announces the launch the special online series Future Fortified.

Keywords: Fortification

This map of countries depicts the status of biofortified crops, which have been conventionally bred for high vitamin A, iron, and zinc content to address nutritional needs.

This review examined studies on the use of multiple micronutrient powders (MNPs) in pregnancy, compared with supplements or no additional micronutrients. Overall, MNPs were similar to...

Keywords: Fortification

Industrial fortification of staple cereals, fats, and oils has been successful in decreasing the burden of micronutrient malnutrition. The authors of this document review the history,...

Keywords: Fortification

Biofortification is a viable strategy to improve the nutritional status of populations dependent on staple food crops for sustenance. This new interactive online tool - the Biofortification...

Keywords: Fortification

Iron-biofortified varieties of commonly consumed staple crops have the potential to contribute to the daily iron requirements in diets and thus reduce iron deficiency among children and...

Keywords: Fortification

Fortifying staple foods—maize, flour, and edible oils—is a cost effective intervention to tackle malnutrition and reduce life threatening conditions and diseases. The latest infographic by...

The Lucky Iron Fish Project has introduced a simple and effective tool to increase dietary iron intake without using iron pills: a small metal fish—a symbol of luck in Cambodian culture—...

Keywords: Fortification, Anemia

Although Nigeria has had a mandated food fortification policy since 2002, a study last year concluded that only 30 percent of products in markets contained required levels of micronutrients...

Keywords: Fortification

The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), in partnership with Devex, has launched the Future Fortified online series. The series investigates how food fortification can prevent...

Keywords: Fortification

Point-of-use fortification is increasingly being introduced and scaled up. The United Nations Children’s Fund, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the United Nations World...

Keywords: Fortification

Biofortified food crops are rich in vitamins and are used in 25 countries. During this webinar, presenters discussed biofortification’s nutritional and economic benefits and provided an...

Keywords: Fortification

This policy brief lays out technical evidence and arguments for expanding support for biofortification as an element of nutrition-sensitive national agricultural research and investment...

Keywords: Fortification

Developed by the Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition, this policy brief lays out the technical evidence and arguments for supporting biofortification as an important...

Keywords: Fortification
Location: India, Rwanda

This double blind, randomized control trial in India demonstrated that double-fortified salt is an efficacious approach to improving iron status and should be further evaluated for...

Keywords: Fortification
Location: India

This article brings together six case studies, of programs using local markets to advance global health technologies. One study focuses on a fortified rice product rolled out in Brazil (...

Keywords: Fortification, Sustainability
Location: Brazil

This baseline dietary intake survey in Uganda 1) estimates the prevalence of inadequate intakes of specific micronutrients, and 2) predicts the potential contribution of fortification of...

Keywords: Fortification
Location: Uganda