Significant progress made fortifying Nigerian staple food with micronutrients that are essential to achieve better health would have been greater if the edible oil sector is centralized.

This was revealed, recently , when Nigerian Food Processing Companies announced progress on fortifying staple  food in the last three years.

Following three years of leadership engagement by the federal government and CEOs of the nation’s largest food processing companies, significant progress has been made fortifying Nigerian staple foods with micronutrients that are essential to achieving better health and nutrition for all.

READ ALSO:FG reinstates commitment to transparency in governance

The data presented by international non-governmental organization Techno Serve,

shows that the companies have significantly improved their compliance with food fortification standards in the span of three years.

Together, the producers reach more than 90percent of the Nigerian population.

Speaking with selected journalists after the 3rd Annual Nigerian Food Processing and Leadership Forum, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, who chaired the forum, said the private sector remains the engine of growth for the Nigerian economy.

Aliko Dangote, chairman , Aliko Dangote Foundation, said “By creating a common set of compliance standards, while also giving companies the tools they need to effectively fortify their foods, we are creating a sustainable path to  delivering Nigerians food that will help them live healthier, more productive lives.

“Better nutrition for our consumers means better health and economic development for our nation.”

Dangote added that Edible oil fortified with VitaminA also made progress, but to a lesser degree, with the population reached with fortified cooking oil increasing from 25percent to 32percent.

“Unlike the other staples, however, the edible oil companies participating in the CEO forum represent closer to 40percent of the nation’s total production volume.

“To put the scale of these achievements in perspective, an additional 125.7 million Nigerians now have access to sugar fortified with vitaminA; an additional 73.5million have access to wheat flour fortified with iron and folic acid; and an additional 13.8million have access to cooking oil fortified with vitamin A.”

While noting that the efforts of the Strengthening African Processors of Fortified Foods, SAPFF, project on increasing access to adequately fortified foods to impact public health would  be higher lf similar successes in other staple food is recorded in edible oil.

He noted one reason for the slower progress is that the edible oil industry is less centralized than other staple foods, requiring coordination across more stakeholders.

Speaking at the forum on the firm’s commitment to participate in the Micronutrient Fortification Index (MFI), Mr Ashish Pande, Managing Director, Crown Flour Mill Limited, said, “Crown Flour Mills has established a state-of-the-art vitamin premix facility in Nigeria with technical support from the international nonprofit TechnoServe, under the Strengthening African Processors of Fortified Foods program.

The goal is to prepare vitamin premix according to the regulatory requirement of the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) and to supply Crown Flour plants with high quality and food-safe vitamin premix. This is the first ever by any flour miller in Nigeria.

“Improving the Food fortification levels of staple foods is one agenda that we are utterly committed to at Olam Grains. Sustainability is one of the key enablers of our operational strategy. It is at the heart of our business’ drive to reimagine global agriculture and food systems.  Providing access to nutrition which enables Nigerians live healthy and productive lives, therefore sits at core of our purpose as a business.”

Re-iterating same position, the co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, said  “Vitamin A is one of the most critical nutrients kids need to grow up healthy—but too few kids receive a sufficient amount in their diet. He said “The world needs to fortify more foods with VitaminA. The leaders in this meeting have already shown what’s possible for wheat flour, salt, and sugar.

“I hope that by the next time we meet, cooking oil will be added to the list.”

It was gathered that Techno Serve will be working on further technical assistance to oil millers who want to participate in the multi-stakeholder effort.

In addition,Techno Serve will support relevant government agencies to improve its efforts on regular testing of imported edible oil at the ports of entry.

Also speaking at the froum, the Minister of Trade, Niyi Adebayo, commended the industry leaders .

“Given the impacts of Covid-19 on our economy, I am particularly impressed with the leadership we have seen from our food companies.

,”Our industry leaders have shown that even during an international public health crisis and an economic crisis, we can still deliver good nutrition for all citizens, including our poorest, through production and distribution of widely consumed fortified staple foods.”