Deciding to fortify

The following factors may influence a milling company's decision to fortify:

Fortification restores and enhances the health-giving properties of grains: Flours such as wheat flour and maize meal are important staple foods in many parts of the world including Africa, providing a substantial proportion of people's daily energy needs . In addition to calories, unprocessed wheat and maize are good sources of a range of nutrients, mostly concentrated in the germ and outer layers of the grain. During milling, however, vitamins and minerals are lost, so that refined cereals retain only 15-20% of the grain's original nutrients. Fortification can restore these nutrients, and even provide additional nutrients, such as Vitamin A, to improve the overall nutrient quality of processed cereals.

You can reach large numbers of people with a healthy product: Due to rapid urbanization and improved links between urban and rural areas, people increasingly buy processed maize meal and wheat flour products like bread and noodles. Bread consumption, for example, is rapidly increasing across Sub-Saharan Africa. Wheat milling at large modern mills increased by 40% between 1998 and 2002. With the urban population expected to reach 365 million by 2015, and centrally processed foods increasingly reaching deep into rural areas, the reach and positive health impact attainable through fortification of maize meal and wheat flour is great.

You will be joining a continent-wide trend: Several African countries and companies have already recognized the benefits of flour fortification. The fortification of wheat and maize flour has been mandatory in South Africa since 2002, in Zambia since 2003, in Nigeria since 2004 and in Morocco, in the case of wheat flour, since 2005. Guinea and Kenya have been fortifying wheat flour on a voluntary basis since 2004 and 2007 respectively. Some multinational flour milling companies have adopted flour fortification voluntarily in countries in Africa where they operate, notably Angola, Congo, Kenya and Lesotho.

It is in step with a world-wide trend: As of 2005 all countries in the Americas (North, Central and South) have national wheat and maize flour fortification programmes. Several countries in the Middle East and Asia are also fortifying flour. Since 1996 folic acid fortification of flour in North America and Chile has reduced birth defects by between 50 and 75%. The United Kingdom has recently announced that it will table legislation making the fortification of flour mandatory.