Shifting to fortified whole grain & whole blend foods
Institutional food procurement is a powerful demand tool often underutilized in promoting healthy dietary patterns. It comprises food purchases by both public and private sector and provision of food items and meals at institutions including schools, universities, early childhood development centers, healthcare facilities, nursing homes, senior centers, military bases, prisons, and public and private cafeterias. It also covers safety net programs such as in-kind food assistance, restricted cash transfers, and social restaurants and food shops. School feeding alone reaches 305 million children in low- and middle-income countries.
Steps to ensure a successful transition to FWG & FWB in public food programs
Build awareness about FWG & FWB’s importance in diets
Sensitize the school community and the whole population about the benefits of FWG and FWB via nationwide social marketing.
Switch maize flour procurement for schools to FWG flour
Switch all maize flour procurement to FWG flour (budget-neutrally) to provide the structured demand to enable investment by millers.
Invest in production economics to increase affordability
Invest in new machinery to efficiently produce FWG to meet national school feeding program’s demand and engage local farmers and aggregators to improve quality throughout the value chain.
Increase distribution networks to enable access to FWG & FWB
Invest in packaging, transportation and storage infrastructure to ensure FWG and FWB is safely, efficiently and sustainably delivered to schools
Include FWG & FWB in other government food programs
Provide FWG and FWB in safety nets instead of refined grains and invest in the transition to FWG and FWB for government subsidy programs.
Source: The Rockefeller Foundation
Although institutional markets represent viable entry points for a whole grain initiative, consumer markets must be an integral part of a whole grain strategy given their larger scale and reach. Integrated thinking across both markets can lead to cross-leverage of insights and efforts and avoid stigmas associated with food assistance.
Incremental steps to reach the consumer market with FWG & FWB products
Build awareness about FWG & FWB’s importance in diets
Sensitize the general public on the social, environmental, economic and nutritional benefits of switching to FWG & FWB by leveraging, for example, social media, creation of pre-cooked options that are easy to serve in retail outlets, and partnerships with chefs and restaurants.
Invest in R&D for FWG & FWB meals and scale production
Invest in R&D to improve FWG & FWB products in terms of taste, shelf life and shelf stability and scale investments in new machinery to efficiently produce FWG & FWB products.
Increase distribution networks to reach the consumer market
Build or adapt at scale existing transportation and storage infrastructure to ensure FWG and FWB products are safely, efficiently and sustainably delivered to consumers.
Source: The Rockefeller Foundation
