DSM’s Nutrition Improvement focus: Fresh thinking on global nutrition and food fortification

15 Jun 2018 --- “We work with our customers and the larger malnutrition-fighting community to treat and prevent malnutrition,” Anthony Hehir, Director of DSM’s Nutrition Improvement Business Segment, tells NutritionInsight. Using its solid science and technical heritage, DSM is striving to fight global malnutrition through its “business with a purpose” approach. NutritionInsight spoke to Hehir, gaining an insight into what drives the company’s staple food fortification technologies, research and future nutrition endeavors. 

DSM’s Nutrition Improvement team work globally to address malnutrition and micronutrient deficiencies in developing countries. They primarily do this through staple food fortification, public health supplements and therapeutic or emergency foods, such as porridges, during situations when access to normal food is limited. In this way, DSM’s current role in fighting malnutrition has a range of contexts.

Staple food fortification
The fortification of staple foods brings many benefits: “It’s a fantastic way to address population-wide deficiencies. It reaches almost everybody, is commonly consumed, it does not impact on the eating experience of the product, it’s affordable and the person does not have to change their habits to incorporate it,” says Hehir.

One particularly “exciting” innovative fortification is in rice. Rice is notoriously challenging to fortify, yet almost 20 percent of the world’s calories come from the carbohydrate, he explains. “If you think of oil, all you do is add oily forms of the vitamins to fortify it. Also with flour, all you do is add a powdered blend of vitamins.” Clearly, with rice, neither of these methods could effectively work.

Instead, “we co-developed a technology – using extrusion – where we combined vitamins and minerals (of which the population is deficient in) and we blend that together with rice flour. We then add steam and water to create a dough, which is then extruded at a high temperature and cut into rice-shaped kernels. After cooling and drying, they look like rice kernels, but they are really vitamin and mineral pellets and can be added to the usual rice – usually at around 2 percent.”

This method of fortifying rice has the critical characteristics of staple food fortification: it is affordable and does not require a change in habits of the consumer. Furthermore, it will have wide-spread influence: “By focusing on a grain that is so heavily consumed, particularly in Asia, you can just imagine the reach and impact for populations.”

Science and technology heritage
The strong science and technology heritage of DSM that was able to spur the rice fortification method is a differentiator that DSM can bring to its customers, Hehir notes. “If you look at our portfolio, especially at the vitamins, there are just so many forms. And, from an R&D point of view, we really put a lot of focus on our forms being fit for purpose.”

“We ensure that the required micronutrients can be easily incorporated into the final product, that they do not interact with other ingredients and that they can withstand the expected shelf-life of the product. All of this is as important for the Nutrition Improvement segment of the business as it is for other segments of the DSM business. We are developing product forms and technology and innovations that are fit for purpose,” he says.

Multi-stakeholder and multi-pronged approaches
The significant technological and scientific competence of DSM, along with its end consumer-driven focus, lends itself to work collaboratively with a range of partners. As a B2B company, Hehir says, they are much stronger when they are working with a range of stakeholders such as their valuable customers, NGOs, governments, donors and academic institutions. This collaboration “shortens time and increases learning and impact.”

Such multi-stakeholder partnerships help in tackling the complex issue of global nutrition, for which a multi-pronged approach is necessary. Fortifying staple foods is one measure that can be implemented to access a wide-range of nutrient deficient people. However, it does not end there. “You must put consumers in the middle and help them to understand more so they can take charge of their health. Teaching them how they can take their health into their own hands is key to positively changing behavior around nutrition. Manufacturers also need to continue offering nutritious products. All the main players follow once this message is out there.”

Policy, he goes on, is also crucial. “In Europe, we are seeing food labeling law evolving and regulations such as the sugar tax coming in. I see this trend in regulatory affairs growing in the US and UK but also in those countries that stand on both sides of the economic scale such as South Africa, India, Brazil and Mexico. Here, you have the double burden of underweight and overweight individuals living in one household. This is twice as complicated to face.”

Looking to the future: Social factors around nutrition and personalized nutrition
Mothers and young children – especially during the first 1000 days of life – are a focus for DSM’s Nutrition Improvement initiative at the moment, Hehir says, as there are some significant nutritional variations to consider when it comes to these groups. “How can a woman of childbearing age be more aware of her nutrition so that when her children are born, they are as healthy as possible? How can we help to ensure moms prioritize nutrition?”

It is all down to behavior, he says. It is critical to engage with factors broader than simply nutrition when trying to gain nutritional access to different groups. “We have to consider what role food plays in their lives. Understanding a consumer’s relationship with food and what it means for nutrition is not fully understood yet. The nexus between food science, consumer behavior and the social lens are at play here.” In this context, it could be crucial to understand the sharing aspect of many women’s lives, for example. Meaning, the likelihood that the targeted nutrition product you have supplied will be shared among the family members, and ultimately, not fully ingested by the woman; the target recipient.

Lastly, personalized nutrition is a big topic for DSM as a company. Hehir speculates about what a personalized touch could bring to its global nutrition improvement efforts. He cites examples including how the genetic make-up of an individual may determine how they respond to a micronutrient supplementation. So, if working with pregnant women, for example, personalized tests could be used to determine how to make up the best supplementation to be as beneficial as possible.

“Nutrition lies at the absolute heart of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and is the key to unlocking human potential. For those whose nutritional status is compromised, DSM will keep working, advocating and innovating to ensure this crucial gap can be closed,” Hehir concludes.

By Laxmi Haigh