Mr. Bolaji Anifowoshe, VP Commercial, representing the wheat milling team/Olam agri as a part of top performing companies which were called in by Bill Gates and Gates Foundation in Lagos today, to recognize the CEOs from the top performing companies that are achieving food fortification excellence of strategic staple foods in Nigeria.
Together they reflected on what it takes to regain pre-Pandemic coverage of the population with adequately fortified wheat flour of 93%, and to expand cooking oil fortification beyond the 98% achieved for industrially processed oil to include the loose oil that half the population, and some of the poorest segments, rely on.
They also talked about the continuing commitment to innovation and opportunities to lever other staples like salt, rice and bouillon cubes to ensure that families get the nutrients they need through their diets, to protect them against malnutrition, when they need it most.
The companies celebrated today have top performing brands ranked by the Micronutrient Fortification Index. A new instrument to drive fortification compliance that harnesses the competitive nature of companies, introduced last year. With the second edition completed, the MFI uses large and diverse sets of data about product quality and fortification-related business practices to provide simple, easy-to-understand performance indicators for brand ranking.
This mechanism is part of a new 8-country initiative that builds on successes of the Nigeria fortification experience called Millers For Nutrition. M4N aims to fundamentally change the ecosystem and incentives that supports food fortification.