Bühler enters Millers for Nutrition coalition to fortify staple foods across eight countries

Bühler has joined Millers for Nutrition, a coalition of helping millers fortify staple foods. Bühler brings its cutting-edge technology, expertise and training capacities to support customers in wheat flour, maize milling, rice and extrusion with fortification solutions. 

The coalition supports millers in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Nigeria, Pakistan and Tanzania in fortifying wheat and maize flours, edible oil and rice.

“We’re delighted Bühler has joined us as a Food Processing Solutions Provider,” says Riz Yusufali, program director.

“As our millers continue to evolve, they need a wider variety of support services. Bühler’s world-class expertise will help enhance their business while improving food safety and nutrition.”

Joining capacities

Fortification deliberately adds micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) to commonly consumed food to improve its nutritional quality, playing a central role in national health policies. In the UK, for instance, millers and flour producers must fortify non-wholemeal wheat flour with folic acid by the end of 2026 to protect newborn babies from severe brain and spine problems.

The Millers for Nutrition initiative aims to improve nutrition for one billion people globally by 2026. The coalition’s innovative approach connects millers to industry experts, suppliers, social enterprises and other solution providers to access technical assistance and specialized training on industry best practices.

“Bühler’s teams in these countries can support on-the-ground implementation of fortification solutions at mills. Training is a key element in this journey, and Bühler brings in experience, processing solutions, experts and a global network,” says Stefan Birrer.

The coalition partners aim to raise the nutritional value of staple foods while increasing operational efficiencies and competitiveness.

Nairobi case study

In Nairobi, Kenya, Bühler runs the African Milling School, which has trained over 1,500 students from more than 25 countries since its opening in 2015. In the last few years, Bühler has also installed micro-dosers for adding nutrients to flour in milling plants worldwide.

“Food fortification is one of the most effective ways to address the long-standing challenge of malnutrition, which affects about three billion people worldwide. By joining the coalition, we aim to effectively address this issue,” says Stefan Birrer, head of Business Area Milling Solutions at Bühler.

The Millers for Nutrition coalition is supported by its Strategic Fortification Partners: BASF, BioAnalyt, Bühler, dsm-firmenich, Mühlenchemie and SternVitamin. It is also supported by Regional Strategic Fortification Partners: Hexagon Nutrition, Piramal and Sanku, as well as a group of local technical partners.

The coalition is supported by TechnoServe, a non-profit organization delivering solutions to poverty and funding support from the Gates Foundation.

Among innovative food fortification launches this year, Rohto Pharmaceuticals and dsm-firmenich recently announced the Japanese debut of Vision R — multi-layered micronutrient granules designed to address nutritional insufficiencies among seniors, which can be “seamlessly integrated” into food. The food fortifying ingredient utilizes dsm-firmenich’s patented Sprinkle It Technology.

With vitamin A being essential for the development and maintenance of healthy vision in infants, dsm-firmenich also released a “breakthrough” dry form of vitamin A designed to enrich baby formula nutrition without the stability issues associated with traditional vitamin A ingredients.