Eating right is the basis of leading a healthy life. Receiving the right balance of micronutrients, carbohydrates, proteins and fats, improves health and is especially critical for infant, child and maternal health.
It also strengthens immune systems, makes pregnancy and childbirth safer, lowers the risk of non-communicable diseases (such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, high blood-pressure and osteoporosis), and allows us to live longer.
It makes us more resilient and vigorous, and it makes economic sense. According to the global nutrition report 2015, for every dollar invested in nutrition a country can get $16 in return.
Ensuring everyone has access to nutritious foods is the only way we, as a global society, can end hunger and malnutrition and achieve the recently adopted sustainable development goal two. But the reality is that nutritious foods are difficult or even impossible to come by. Two billion people worldwide are malnourished, half of whom go to bed hungry every day.
And latest Unicef data reveals that 159 million children were stunted in 2014, meaning their lack of nutrition will impede their ability to fully thrive. Malnutrition is due to a variety of factors including the lack of nutrient-rich options available, people’s inability to access these options or their lack of popular appeal.
The only way to reach the goal of food and nutrition security for all is through a concerted effort with all sectors contributing their strengths. With power and influence, comes great responsibility which must be taken up by all players. The private sector, which we represent, has excellent marketing and innovation skills which can be put to work to deliver products tailored to those in direst need of nutrition.
As industry, we can market healthier food, by connecting nutrition to products that are aspirational, affordable and available. These “three A’s” should guide our product development. To make a product aspirational is to trigger a consumer response which makes the consumer understand they are positively impacting their well-being. Too often, people aspire to consume hollow food. Food that lacks the needed micronutrients while being high in fat, salt and/or sugar.
We have seen this trend have disastrous results in the developed world in terms of obesity, and we should not see this repeated in the developing world. By using the same marketing techniques that are used to build aspirational brands the value chain can create nutritious products that people don’t only need to eat but also want to eat - and that are within their reach.
Creating nutritious solutions which are affordable means developing new business models and increasing the role of a responsible food industry to bring nutrition to consumers at a price they can afford to pay. Smaller-sized individual packaging and family-sized value packaging are ways in which we can create products that are economically viable solutions for those who need them.
Ensuring the convenient availability of nutritious foods is about reaching the people who need it most right in the heart of communities. We need to have all kinds of food companies on board, from the largest to small and family-run enterprises, from global brands to local names. Companies need support to understand the impact they can have in nutrition, including within their own workforce, technical assistance, market research, demand creation – these are all areas where other groups such as UN agencies or NGOs can come in and collaborate with business.
Together, we are building a movement of companies from all sectors who care and want to make an impact on their communities, the Scaling Up Nutrition Business Network. 186 companies with competences in areas such as food fortification, advertising, agriculture, information technology and more have joined our network and through their commitments will reach over 125 million consumers with improved nutrition by 2020.
We map companies’ specialised competences and link these offers with SUN country nutrition needs. DSM through its partnership with UN World Food Programme, for example, reached 25,1 beneficiaries with improved nutritional products in 2014. SBN is growing fast with more and more companies joining from around the world.
Malnutrition is a trap that humanity can escape from. This can no longer be justified since there is no shortage of food. Solving hunger is the next step in our civilisation.
We need to seize this momentum as we plan to deliver on the newly set sustainable development goals (SDGs) and, together with all those involved, increase our impact to achieve the change we are striving for. Ending hunger and malnutrition is more than possible, but will demand more strategic use of resources, stronger responsibility and accountability, and more creativity from all of us. Everybody has the right to a bright future, let’s enable that.
Feike Sijbesma, chairman and CEO of Royal DSM, and Axton Salim, director of Indofood, Sun Business Network Advisory Group Co-Chairs
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