Millers for Nutrition is an industry-led coalition launched in 2023, which aims to help millers produce adequately fortified staple foods and reach one billion people with fortified rice, edible oil and flour by 2026.
By adding essential vitamins and minerals to the widely consumed foods they produce, millers can play an important role in reducing malnutrition and improving public health. As the world is facing a worsening food and nutrition crisis, Millers for Nutrition has been established to encourage, enable and celebrate the vital role millers play in improving nutrition.
Millers for Nutrition is being implemented in eight countries across Africa and Asia: Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Nigeria, Pakistan and Tanzania, and across three staple food vehicles: rice, edible oil, and flour (wheat and maize). International nonprofit TechnoServe, which has significant experience supporting industry-led fortification capacity building efforts, is coordinating program activities.
Millers for Nutrition will support maize and wheat flour millers
Millers who become members and commit to improving the nutritional quality of their food will receive free technical support to make it easier to fortify their products. This includes access to tailored technical training and business advice, product testing support and online tools and resources, which will also help millers to reduce their compliance risk and enhance production efficiency.
As fortification quality improves, members will benefit as they gain greater recognition for product quality and industry leadership, for example, through inclusion in a specially designed index that rates brands on fortification performance, and associated visibility at events and in local media.
Supporting maize and wheat flour millers is a key priority of Millers for Nutrition. Industry partner MC Mühlenchemie, a global leader in flour fortification and flour improvement, is driving the provision of technical assistance and support to flour millers, leveraging its technical resources and worldwide reach and relationships with flour mills.
Most recently, MC Mühlenchemie led an event on wheat flour fortification in Jakarta, Indonesia. The Indonesian wheat milling industry and TechnoServe were invited to exchange on the current Indonesian fortification standard and learn more about the development of high-quality micronutrient premixes and analytical challenges in flour analysis. Another focus topic presented by MC Mühlenchemie was the selection of suitable iron sources for flour fortification, as this currently poses challenges for local millers.
Hexagon Nutrition Limited, a leading producer of micronutrients and premixes and newly joined industry partner of MIllers for Nutrition, will be leading the provision of support to flour millers in India.
Millers for Nutrition is also supportingsmall scale flour mills
Millers for Nutrition supports small and medium scale mills by leveraging the expertise and resources of one of the founding members – Sanku. Since 2014, Sanku provides small and medium scale mills in East Africa with an IoT-enabled Dosifier, an award-winning technology that attaches to local mills and doses out a precise amount of critical nutrients into each bag of flour.
In 2022, wheat flour fortification in Ethiopia became mandatory, and Millers for Nutrition is stepping in to support millers to adopt new standards. In December 2023, Sanku together with TechnoServe and the Ethiopia Food and Beverage Industry Research and Development Center, facilitated a comprehensive Miller Training on food fortification for over 70 Ethiopian millers.
During the training, millers learned about national policies, programs, and strategies on wheat flour fortification, and received the necessary knowledge and skills to apply fortification technologies and procedures to wheat flour.
Join Millers for Nutrition
If you are a flour miller active in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Nigeria, Pakistan and Tanzania) and would like to become a member you can sign up via our website. There you will also find more information about Millers for Nutrition.