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Regional Workshop on Flour and Cooking Oil Fortification
6-8 November 2001; Mandaluyong City, Philippines

Agenda

  • View Agenda. [ PDF: 18kb | 4 pages ]

Workshop Objectives

  1. Achieving a solid start on the Oil and Flour components of each country’s Investment Plan. By the end of the workshop, countries should have the skeleton of a plan that they can take home, add detail to, and begin to build political consensus around. Components of this solid start are:

    • A list of identified technical opportunities and technical barriers for flour and oil fortification in the six countries and the region.
    • Recommendations for activities for additional R&D and fortification trials.
    • A list of identified financial and investment constraints for the incremental cost of fortification.
    • A defined approach to cost analysis for flour and oil fortification.
    • A list of potential future projects, including some requiring new investment.
    • A list of identified alternative, public-private collaborative strategies to address financial barriers.

  2. Recommendations for the Regional Workshop on Regulation, Trade, Quality Assurance and Surveillance. Identification of specific, key flour and oil issues that require attention in that workshop’s program (to occur in Bangkok in early 2002).


  3. Identifying regional opportunities for joint gain. In many cases, success in fortification may hinge on our collective ability to find regional solutions where national ones are not available or are unfeasible.


  4. Building national and regional momentum. We are engaged together in a process that requires both steady persistence and creative, interdisciplinary thought. As was said at the Inception Meeting on 14-16 August, 2001, we must constantly remember what we are navigating toward—a not-too-distant future in which millions more human beings can strive toward their intellectual, physical and economic potential. With each accurate calculation, each successful negotiation, each research breakthrough, and each productive pairing of different perspectives, we move closer to that goal.

Meeting Executive Summary

Delegations from six Asian nations1 attended the Regional Workshop on Flour and Oil Fortification on 6-8 November, at the offices of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in Manila, Philippines. The workshop was a crucial element of ADB’s Regional Initiative to Eliminate Micronutrient Malnutrition Through Public-Private Partnership. Participants agreed that flour and oil fortification is technically feasible, commercially viable and promises cost-efficient health benefits to broad populations at risk of micronutrient deficiencies.

Presentations and discussions focused on technology; financing issues; legislative and regulatory approaches; quality assurance and quality control; bioavailability (flour); stability, packaging and distribution (oil); and tax and market issues. These sessions generated consensus statements recommending actions to be taken at the national and regional level.

Developing Member Country (DMC) working groups defined investment needs and addressed possible financing solutions. Particular attention was paid to identifying mechanisms for public-private cost sharing as a transition to full market solutions. The working groups generated for each country an analysis of the data still needed in relevant sections of a national investment plan—food technology, government program and policy, and quality assurance—and a strategy for obtaining that data. An important need—felt almost universally by participants—was adequate consumption data for key food vehicles.

At the close of the workshop, consensus statements were discussed and approved by those present.2 Several delegations indicated the role they expected the statements to play in assisting with national advocacy efforts.

Participants achieved formal consensus moving toward the implementation of national flour and oil fortification programs. National Recommendations urged Asian nations to:

  • Develop national mandatory standards for fortification by the year 2006
  • Recognize the critical role of public-private collaboration and partnership
  • Define mechanisms to fully fund food control and regulatory functions
  • Undertake temporary cost-sharing until the market can fully absorb costs

Regional Recommendations recognized the need for:

  • Collaboration in training, technology transfer, communications, and commerce and trade
  • Harmonization of standards in order to enable fortification
  • Financing product research and development, including:
    1. Technology development and regulatory and business strategies for small-scale producers;
    2. Defining consumer acceptance and impact on product organoleptic qualities;
    3. Achieving clarity on bioavailability and acceptability of iron compounds;
    4. Dialogue with global and national organizations regarding regional fortificant production and distribution capacity.

The consensus statements included the definition of specific reference guidelines to assist nations in the selection of fortificants and levels. The participants recommended a basic fortification package for white flours including: 60 ppm electrolytic iron or 30 ppm iron as ferrous sulfate; 30 ppm zinc; 2.5 ppm thiamin; 4 ppm riboflavin; 2 ppm folic acid. For brown flours, when considered feasible and affordable, sodium iron-EDTA or disodium EDTA plus ferrous sulfate should be used rather than electrolytic iron. In addition, for brown flours, the basic package did not include riboflavin or thiamin due to the high natural levels. Finally, participants agreed that when these are of public health concern, Vitamin A, Niacin, B6, B12, and/or calcium should be added to the basic package.

Participants urged passage of mandatory laws or regulations for the fortification of cooking oil with vitamin A by 2006 – with implementation schedules to be developed on a country-by-country basis. The consensus documents recommended a minimum fortification level of 25 IU of vitamin A per gram, with precise levels to be determined by the individual countries. Alternatively, the minimum level of fortification should deliver 25% of RDA of Vitamin A per average daily consumption, after accounting for all losses. The important contribution of other oil-based products such as margarine was recognized. However, felt that that these may not be as well targeted to at-risk populations.

The workshop itself represented a significant step in capacity-building, both nationally and regionally. Specialized DMC teams were constituted for the event, providing a much-needed (and, in the case of most countries, new) interdisciplinary and crosssectoral approach to the development of fortification programs and related investment plans. As with the project’s Inception Meeting, the formation and maintenance of these teams should yield opportunities for creative problem-solving across professional boundaries on a variety of public health subjects in the future.

Flour Fortification Consensus Statement

  • View document. [ PDF: 32kb | 4 pages ]

Oil Fortification Consensus Statement

  • View document. [ PDF: 24kb | 3 pages ]

Flour Fortification Break Out Session

Oil Fortification Break-Out Session

Reports from Country Team Meetings

Presentations

Participants

1 Countries represented included India, Indonesia, Pakistan, the People’s Republic of China, Thailand, and Vietnam. Participants from India and Pakistan were from the private milling sector and did not constitute full, formal delegations. Select special guests from the international food industry were also in attendance.

2 To be issued as formal declarations - pending the approval of the team leaders from each member country participating in the project. All team leaders were not present.

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