Flour fortification with Sanku

Micronutrient deficiency is one of those problems that is invisible until you count its consequences: it is a leading cause of intellectual disability in children, of preventable blindness in adults, and of maternal death in childbirth. Fortifying staple foods is the standard fix, and in high-income countries it has been routine for so long that most people have never heard of it.

Two gaps, really. The first is the small rural mill: most fortification programs target large industrial mills, while a great many families buy flour from village mills that were never equipped to dose it. The second is verification. Many countries have fortification laws on the books, but very little data exists on whether the food reaching households contains the nutrient levels the national standard requires, which quietly undermines the whole effort.

This program works on both, supplying dosing technology to small mills and giving governments the tools and training to monitor national programs. It is run by Project Healthy Children, which operates the Sanku program.

Fortification rides on food people are buying anyway. There is no separate visit to arrange, no supply chain to build for the recipient and nothing for a household to remember to do, so the ongoing cost per person reached falls to a fraction of a cent per year once a program is running. Prevention at that price frees up health spending for illness that could not have been averted.

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