Nutritional Benefits of Fortification
- Fortification is the addition during food manufacture of essential vitamins and minerals to stable foods. Fortification is normally performed under and according to government regulation and is increasingly becoming compulsory across Africa.
- Fortification involves adding vitamins and minerals in their chemical form and blending them in foodstuffs such as maize meal, wheat flour and even sugar. Typically, several different vitamins and minerals are added, for example Vitamin A, Vitamins B1, B2, B3, B6, B9 and B12, iron and zinc. They are added in the form of a pre-mix powder, which is obtained from particular approved suppliers. These premixes are very inexpensive and only marginally increase the cost of manufacturing the meal/flour.
- Special automated dosing and blending equipment have been developed to ensure that the vitamins and minerals are added at the correct concentration and are uniformly distributed throughout the flour. The dosing and blending equipment are widely available, reliable, simple to use and are relatively inexpensive.
1. Flour.com: Anatomy of a Wheat Kernel 2. Rockefeller: whole grain Manifesto 3rd April 2022 3. Pristinepremixes.com: Flour fortification process and components 3. whole grain Manifesto: Note – extraction rates vary and can go as high as 82% for refined flour 4. Standards of Fortification vary across countries and can include a combination, subset or additions to the ones mentioned on this page 5. Some water weight, up to 1.4% per kg, may be lost in the drying process
- A high proportion of children and women of childbearing age in Africa are very at-risk of diseases caused by insufficient micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) in their diets, for example night-blindness caused by vitamin A deficiency and anaemia caused by insufficient iron. In addition, vitamin and mineral deficiencies are in-part responsible for other very common childhood diseases such as diarrhoea and also cause irreversible long-term damage to children’s physical and mental development.
- A shortage of essential vitamins and minerals in the diet is officially called “micronutrient malnutrition” as opposed to a shortage of nutrients such as starch, protein and fates. Micronutrient malnutrition is commonly called the “Hidden Hunger” as its effect is not immediate as would be the case with insufficient energy in the diet but is slow and insidious.
- Over the past 30 years, many studies have shown that vitamin and mineral fortification of staple foodstuffs is highly effective in improving the nutrient status of at-risk groups in developing countries. As a consequence, food fortification is today the major strategy of the World Health Organization (WHO) and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) for combatting micronutrient malnutrition.
- There are significant health benefits of whole grains because of their much higher contents of several essential vitamins and minerals and other nutrients when compared to refined-grain foods. Why then is it necessary to fortify whole grain meal and flour? Sadly, the fact of the matter is that the diet of many people in Africa is so deficient that even consuming whole grain foods does not provide them with sufficient vitamins and minerals. Furthermore, Vitamin A which is one of the most important vitamins is normally not present in grains and hence, it is included as a fortificant.
- In some instances, the cost of fortification equipment and of the micronutrient pre-mix may be subsidised by government or NGOs. However, such subsidy even if it is provided is normally only short-term and it would be very unwise to rely on it. Rather, millers should use the fact that their products have been fortified for improved nutrition and health as a marketing strategy to promote sales. In this regard, nutrition and health is one of the three major drivers of consumer food purchase in Africa, together with cost and affordability and taste.
