The promotion of healthy diets and better nutrition is central to how we bring progress to life. By fostering positive diet transitions and highlighting the role of nutrition and food as preventative health factors, we can address malnutrition in all its forms, including micronutrient deficiencies.
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In 2024, a report by The Lancet Global Health concluded that 5 billion people suffer from at least one micronutrient deficiency. Additionally, the World Health Organization stated that 2.5 billion adults were overweight, 890 million obese, and 390 million underweight.
This is why our nutrition and health efforts focus on strengthening global food systems, improving equitable access to adequate nutrition, and enhancing health outcomes. We work on solutions and innovations that support health and well-being by adding essential nutrients to food and beverage products and by reducing sugar, salt, and saturated fats.
Solving malnutrition is a global challenge, and one that we cannot tackle alone. We collaborate with our global partners – including the World Food Programme (WFP), UNICEF, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), and World Vision International – to address the root causes of malnutrition and help shape more equitable and sustainable food systems across Africa, Asia, and Latin America. We have also made significant investments, such as in Africa Improved Foods (AIF), to increase the local production of nutritious foods on the African continent.
Through our nutrition improvement products, which operate both independently and through our partnerships, we reached 620 million beneficiaries with our high-quality nutritional intervention solutions: large-scale staple food fortification, emergency and therapeutic foods, and public health supplementation.
Partnerships for nutrition and health
UN World Food Programme (WPF)
Since 2007, our company and the WFP have worked together to combat malnutrition and its devastating impacts. Operating under the shared mission of ‘Improving Nutrition, Improving Lives,' the partnership focuses on eliminating hidden hunger. Combining our advanced nutrition expertise with WFP’s global reach and operational capacity, this collaboration achieves far-reaching results that neither organization could alone. Key focus areas for the current agreement (2022–2024) include:
- Scaling up fortified rice: promoting global adoption of fortified rice to address widespread micronutrient deficiencies
- Improving access to nutritious foods: enhancing the availability and affordability of fortified foods in markets worldwide
- Building evidence for nutrition investment: contributing robust data to encourage global support for nutrition initiatives
- Advocating for nutrition: raising awareness and driving investment in sustainable nutrition solutions
The partnership operates through two primary workstreams: rice fortification and retail, supported by knowledge-sharing, advocacy, communication, and contributions in kind. The latest data on the impact of these efforts cover 2023, and include:
- Reaching 38 million people with fortified and nutritious food products enhanced by the partnership
- Reaching 20.5 million people through rice fortification and retail projects in the context of WFP country programs
- Enabling the distribution of fortified rice to 500 million people in previously partnered countries through expanded social protection programs
- Reaching 4.8 million individuals via Social Behavior Change (SBC) activities and additionally training 14,000 community leaders, health workers, and retailers to advocate for fortified foods
- Strengthening food systems by providing technical support to 230 millers to produce fortified rice and maize flour
- Driving sustainable progress toward eradicating malnutrition by combining innovation with a systemic approach
In the fourth quarter of 2024, our partnership with WFP was renewed for the subsequent three years (2025–2027). It will focus on the following workstreams:
- Reaching the most vulnerable at scale, which entails increased integration of fortified staples into institutional demand and humanitarian programs
- Strengthening impact by improving the quality of fortified staples
- Identifying potential innovative solutions to further address micronutrient deficiencies
UNICEF
We have partnered with UNICEF since 2013, sharing a joint ambition to promote increased and sustainable access to better nutrition for mothers and children in need. Recognizing the importance of the role of the young in tackling malnutrition in the years to come, the partnership also encouraged entrepreneurial skills and employment opportunities among young African people through the Generation Unlimited initiative (GenU). Below is a summary of what the partnership achieved by the end of the current agreement (2022–2024).
Nigeria
We supported the Nigerian government in introducing and scaling a large program to deliver vital nutrients to at-risk populations.
Through the partnership, multiple micronutrient supplements (MMS) and other nutritious supplements were included in the national list of essential drugs. In addition, the national SBC strategy was developed and disseminated. This focuses on nutrition, including MMS and micronutrient powders (MNPs), among other elements. By the end of 2024, local producers of MMS and MNPs were assessed in preparation for future scale-up.
India
Through the partnership, UNICEF India created the ImpAct4Nutrition platform to engage the private sector with the topic of workforce nutrition and create a social movement around nutrition literacy. To date, more than 500 companies have pledged, reaching 2.7 million employees and their families (leading to an estimated total reach of more than 100 million individuals). In 2024, 30 companies documented how they integrate healthy diets into their food menu offering. In addition, the program was showcased at government level for further advocacy and potential scale-up.
Mexico
In Mexico, we supported the Ministry of Health in scaling up measures to support maternal and child health. We developed and trained more than 2,000 (community) health workers.
Several policy and nutrition guidelines were drawn up (such as the National Action Plan for Nutrition Care for the First 1,000 Days and the National Protocol for Acute Malnutrition in Children), as well as a related scientific publication. Through this partnership, an operational research protocol to identify barriers to, and enablers of, pregnant women’s compliance with MMS was completed. The findings of this research will inform the implementation and scale-up of MMS in the country.
East and Southern Africa Regional Office (ESARO)
In Malawi, Rwanda, South Africa, and Uganda, we wanted to increase access to micronutrients for women and children. Our program focused on strengthening policies, strategies, and guidelines in these countries. Within one year, the program has stimulated the various governments to devote more attention to maternal nutrition services. It has also opened more resources. Furthermore, Malawi, Rwanda and Uganda have initiated plans for transitioning from iron–folic acid (IFA) supplementation to MMS.
In 2024, the focus of the partnership support was Rwanda, where we achieved the following:
- Developing several policies and guidelines, such as the Maternal Nutrition guideline including MMS and the National Family and Nutrition policy (including nutrient guidelines) for the next five years
- Training healthcare providers on the new Maternal Nutrition guideline including MMS
- Providing support to large-scale operational research on MMS (targeted at 60,000 mothers in seven districts)
- Developing SBC communication guidelines for MMS to ensure better adherence and compliance
GenU
Under the UNICEF umbrella, dsm-firmenich committed to the Generation Unlimited Sustainable Food Systems platform in Nigeria. This initiative brings together stakeholders to collaborate in providing nutritious foods and creating attractive jobs for young people in a sustainable agri-food industry, thereby delivering inclusive economic growth. In the period 2023–2024, two interns were onboarded in our Nigeria office. In 2023, 120 scholars had participated in the Harvard course ‘Food Systems Live! Entrepreneurship in Emerging Economies’. In 2024, three scholars from the country were invited to join the One Young World conference in Montreal (Canada).
As the UNICEF malnutrition partnership ended in December 2024, we are exploring new areas for the focus of our partnership with UNICEF.
World Vision International
In 2024 our partnership with World Vision focused on developing an affordable and sustainable MMS value chain to contribute to the improvement of the nutritional status of pregnant and lactating women in the Philippines. Together with World Vision and Sight and Life, we worked on the co-creation of a viable, repeatable and scalable MMS project model with the support of the Philippines Government. This pilot project will introduce MMS to 3,000 women in four remote locations in the country. The project baseline assessment was conducted, and the actual provision of MMS is planned for 2025.
Africa Improved Foods (AIF)
AIF is a social enterprise with the mission of helping people in Rwanda and the wider region achieve their full potential through improved access to nutritious, locally sourced foods. These foods include mineral and vitamin rich porridges that help meet the nutritional needs of vulnerable population groups such as pregnant and breastfeeding mothers, older infants, and young children. AIF addresses the food challenges facing Africa by building resilient food systems through sourcing, manufacturing, and selling nutritious, affordable, and accessible products.
AIF was launched in 2016 in Rwanda as a public private partnership between the Government of Rwanda and a consortium comprising the former DSM, the Dutch Development Bank, DFID Impact Acceleration Facility managed by CDC Group plc, and the International Finance Corporation, the private sector arm of the World Bank Group.
AIF’s mission is to produce high-quality nutritious foods from local ingredients. Working with smallholder farmers in Rwanda and across the region, AIF improves their productivity and product quality, and is scaling this further with partners. AIF is focused on developing robust value chains that address the challenges of climate change and employment creation in the African food value chain.
More information on AIF’s role in increasing accessible and affordable nutritious foods by improving food safety, reducing malnutrition, and contributing to broader development can be found in a report published by the Harvard Kennedy School and Endeva, entitled Fortifying Food Markets: Unlocking the potential of food fortification partnerships to improve nutrition.
For AIF, 2024 was a challenging year. In the wake of decreased funding for humanitarian relief operations and fighting hidden hunger globally, AIF faced a steep decline in demand. The AIF leadership was able to curb this setback and limit the impact on its factory in Rwanda; no forced redundancies were needed.
Today, the factory employs over 450 skilled workers and reaches more than 1.6 million beneficiaries daily when it is at full capacity. Through the tireless efforts of the AIF team, toward the end of 2024 orders started to come in again, ensuring that the regional procurement of goods and services (such as transportation) continue to lead to indirect economic development in Rwanda and across the region.
Partners in Food Solutions
Partners in Food Solutions works to increase the growth and competitiveness of food companies in Africa. These aims are achieved by inspiring business leaders and linking highly skilled corporate volunteers from a consortium of leading companies – including dsm-firmenich, Cargill, General Mills, Hershey, Bühler, Ardent Mills, and J.M. Smucker Company – with promising entrepreneurs and other influencers in the food ecosystem.
By sharing expertise, volunteers from the corporate partners assist local entrepreneurs in growing their businesses, thus empowering entrepreneurs to work toward stronger, more resilient food value chains across the African continent. In 2024, 68 dsm-firmenich employees contributed more than 1,000 volunteer hours, working with 55 African customer organizations across eight countries. Of these organizations, 37% are owned or managed by women.
Project B.E.N.®
Project B.E.N.®, which stands for Better Eggs for Nutrition, is a cross-cutting innovation that addresses the entire egg value chain – from producer to consumer – thereby saving lives and protecting livelihoods. It increases the production and consumption of eggs, with the effect of greatly reducing childhood malnutrition. At the same time, farmers can increase their income due to improved egg productivity; lower production costs enabled by consistently high-quality inputs (feed, layers, technical assistance, and veterinarian support); access to credit; and access to local markets that are more profitable, for example, school feeding programs.
In 2024, Project B.E.N.® farmers in Latin America and Africa produced more than 25 million eggs, impacting more than 650,000 people, especially children and women of childbearing age, who consumed at least one egg per week.
The ownership is currently being transferred to the farmers. In Brazil, ownership and management of the program has been handed over to the smallholder farmer cooperative COMDAFAR, which is responsible for production, sales and distribution of the eggs to public schools, popular retailers, and hospitals. This has allowed Project B.E.N.® to become self-sustainable.
COMDAFAR has also started to fundraise directly to extend the program, construct of a new egg classification center, and acquire vehicles for egg distribution, thus enabling the program to double its reach. For Brazil alone, the anticipated impact in 2025 and beyond is for more than 16 million eggs to be produced and sold per annum, which would impact more than 300,000 children directly through the school feeding programs.
