Better Lives with Better Nutrition

“Poor nutrition and health among schoolchildren contributes to the inefficiency of the educational system”

“The irregular school attendance of malnourished and unhealthy children is one of the key factors in poor performance”

“Children who are hungry have more difficulty concentrating and performing complex tasks”

Food for Education Works – World Food Programme

Malnutrition is a problem for education. Existing school nutrition programs are impressive and provide a lot of vital nutrition, but a major problem with micronutrient deficiency persists.

Novozymes hope to realise their vision to create better lives with better nutrition by pursuing the long-term mission of growing their business by using bioinnovation and uncommon connections to alleviate hunger, malnutrition and poverty and thereby help achieve the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals. Their short-term mission on the road to the overall vision and mission is to create a food supplement to combat malnutrition in schools in South Africa and the wider Sub-Saharan Africa.

In light of this, Novozymes hosted a workshop in Cape Town, South Africa on 6 February 2008. The purpose of the workshop was to involve stakeholders and potential partners in the exploration and design of a food supplement to combat malnutrition in schools. Participating in this workshop were representatives from Novozymes, Fortitech, Tongaat Hulett Starch, African Dynamics, Regency Foundation Networx, the Department of Education, Copenhagen University as well as state schools.

Novozymes may have part of the solution in a low cost highly nutritious wheat-based water-soluble powder with the following properties:

• Optimised energy composition (specified to local needs)
• Fortified (vitamins, minerals and lysine)
• Multiple taste and color options

• Gives an energy boost
• Optimal nutritional properties (micronutrients)
• Can be formulated to provide 100% of micronutrient RDA

Among the challenges identified with ensuring the success of the project is to ascertain the right points of intervention in the poverty cycle, to determine the efficacy of the enzyme technology for this production, to ensure a low cost (within a total budget of 1-1.5 rand per child per day), to work purposely toward long-term funding, to ensure acceptability to consumers through the use of taste panels, to ensure a balanced formulation and to address the logistical challenges of getting the food to rural schools.

With the immense input from the workshop, Novozymes will be carefully evaluating the various opportunities. This will be an iterative process, connected to further discussions with potential partners. Once one or more particular paths have been chosen, a pilot phase can be initiated. Alongside these efforts the process of identifying funding opportunities will begin in a more targeted way.

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