Fighting hidden hunger to secure future markets

Dutch industry, government and science are combining their efforts to reduce the number of underfed children in Africa by sprinkling their food with vitamins and minerals.

It is not so much starvation that kills and holds back people in third world countries, it is often 'hidden hunger' or malnutrition that is the cause of birth defects, and of stunted growth and mental development.

A collaboration between the Dutch ministry of development aid, the agricultural university in Wageningen and a couple of multinationals aims to add vitamins and minerals to the diet of those who need it most. Their aim is not entirely philanthropic, the companies also hope to secure their future markets.

According to the World Health Organisation, 963 million people do not have enough to eat and an estimated 2 billion people are affected by iron deficiency, the most prevalent form of malnutrition worldwide.

Just sprinkle it

DSM, a Delft-based food company; Unilever, the multinational consumer product maker, and paint and chemical producer Akzo Nobel want to combine the knowledge and networks of industry, science and government to improve the nutrition of African children.

The project, dubbed the Amsterdam Initiative on Malnutrition - is a partnership with the university of Wageningen and the Dutch ministry of development aid. Its aim is to fight malnutrition resulting from chronic vitamins and minerals deficiency.

At stake is not so much more money or more food but getting the right kind of food to the children. A pilot project now focuses on six African countries: Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, Ethiopia, Mozambique and Tanzania. The goal is to reduce the number of underfed children in those countries with 100 million by 2015.

"If we want to solve the problem of malnutrition we have to work together," says Mauricio Adade of DSM.

All three companies have experience in developing nutritionally enriched food, which, it turns out, is fairly cheap. DSM created something called Mix Me: a sachet of vitamins and minerals that can be sprinkled over food, providing the consumer with the full 'recommended daily allowance' of all the essential micro-nutrients as recommended by the World Health Organisation. To date, approximately 250,000 thousand people across Nepal, Kenya and Bangladesh have been supplied with Mix Me via the UN. The satchels cost one US dollar cent a piece.

Not just charity

Are the multinationals simply trying to polish up their image? "This is not charity," says Unilever's Global Health Partnerships director Paulus Verschuren. "It is about the added value to both society and our company. You need a functioning society if you want to set up a healthy business. By fighting malnutrition now we hope to secure our future markets."

DSM too sees business opportunities in fighting malnutrition. The company is developing so-called NutriRice, nutritionally enriched rice. It uses broken grains of rice - usually residuary - which it then crushes and mixes with vitamins and minerals. The pulp is then manufactured into rice grains again and blended back in with the normal rice.

NutriRice has been tested among high school students in China and was "a great success" according to Adade. "Anaemia dropped from 13.7 to 2.5 percent and vitamins deficiency was significantly down too. What's more, the children's educational performance went up."