Flour millers toolkit for fortification

While representatives of the public, private, and civic sectors all have important roles in fortification, millers carry out the program’s requirements daily. Millers secure materials, equip facilities with proper machinery, and maintain equipment. Millers usually cover the costs of these capital investments, and very often they pay the on-going expense of purchasing the vitamins and minerals to add to grains.

Implementing wheat flour fortification effectively requires thorough planning and consistent execution. Millers need to understand and implement quality control measures and comply with food fortification regulations.

Quality control is the responsibility of both millers and external food safety authorities, such as government representatives. A Flour Millers Toolkit offers basic information for flour fortification.

Technical Topics:

• Fortifying flour with vitamins and minerals will not improve flour made with poor quality grains. If low quality grains are used, consumers could blame the inferior flour on the fortification and reject all fortified products.

• The most common way to fortify flour is using a micro feeder. This adds premix to flour at pre-determined rates in the process of flour production.

• Three types of feeders are available: screw, revolving disk and drum or roller. Screw feeders are the most common. They dispense a set volume of premix at a constant rate. The size of the screw determines the feed rate capacity, and this allows a wide range of delivery rates.

• Mills generally need one feeder per type of flour or meal line to be fortified. The size and number of feeders needed depends on the amount of flour produced per hour.

• Magnets are used in flour production to remove unwanted substances like staples or other metal pieces.  Most iron compounds used in fortification (ferrous sulfate, ferrous fumarate, and sodium iron EDTA) are not attracted to magnets. Elemental iron, which is sometimes used for fortification, may be attracted to the magnets, but only rare magnets are strong enough to pull this iron from flour.

The millers’ costs are frequently passed along to consumers in the form of higher prices, but with wheat flour, the additional cost to consumers is as little as 0.01 per five kilograms of flour.

Capital Costs

Capital costs to begin fortification vary widely based on the type of equipment needed. Assuming the rated capacity of the flour mill is greater than 50 metric tons of wheat ground per 24-hour period, a volumetric manual operation feeder can cost from US $3,000 to $10,000. For the same mill, an automatic feeder with linked microprocessor control can cost from US $15,000 to $35,000.

Some large mills may already have all the equipment needed to begin fortification. We recommend that millers who do not have the necessary equipment request feeder price quotations from more than two suppliers to ensure competitive prices.

Some countries that pass mandates to fortify flour will provide funding for initial expenses. Millers also sometimes receive grants from non-governmental organizations for start-up costs.

Recurring Expenses

The recurring costs of buying premix that includes iron, folic acid, and other B vitamins is usually less than US$3 per metric ton of flour. For mills that produce thousands of tons of flour daily, buying premix can be a considerable expenditure. It is a minimal expense, however, compared to the cost of buying wheat.

In most countries flour millers incur the costs of buying premix and pass these costs to customers. Depending on the vitamins and minerals used, the price increase for bakers is as little as US$ 0.10 per 50 kilograms of flour, and for consumers it is as little as US$ 0.10 per loaf of bread or 0.01 per five kilograms of flour. However, in some countries such as Jordan, Iran, and Iraq, the governments pay for the premix to be added to flour as an investment in the health of their populations.

In countries where premix has to be imported, we recommend that governments eliminate the value added tax, tariffs or duties on premix. This relieves some of the financial expectations of flour millers. The government’s reduced income from these taxes will most likely be offset by a reduction in the government’s health care expenditures as the population’s health improves and the prevalence of neural tube birth defects declines.

For more information on implementing plans for wheat flour fortification, see the answers to frequently asked questions from flour millers and economists or email us at info@ffinetwork.org

Implementing maize flour fortification

Implementing maize flour fortification is crucial to combating micronutrient deficiencies. Wheat flour and maize flour are milled with similar processes. See the Flour Millers Toolkit for information on implementing and monitoring fortification at mills.

Maize is the third most commonly consumed cereal grain in the world, after wheat and rice. In Africa, less than 30% of the industrially milled maize is fortified. See this strategy document for scaling up maize flour fortification in Africa from 2017 to 2026.

The World Health Organization offers guidelines for fortifying maize flour "as part of a comprehensive food-based strategy for combating micronutrient deficiencies." Micronutrients are vitamins and minerals that people need in small amounts. These nutrients can easily be provided through fortified foods.

Resources for implementing rice fortification

As implementing rice fortification evolves as a way to improve public health, multi-sector partners are working together to provide technical resources. Some of the recent implementation resources include:

• World Food Program 2019 handbook for millers on the production of extruded fortified rice kernels

• World Health Organization 2018 guideline for fortification of rice with vitamins and minerals as a public health strategy

• Technical manual for rice fortification in a toolkit from the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) and PATH

• Rapid qualitative assay for fortified rice, developed for non-laboratory use, such as regulatory monitoring. See the standard operating procedures and the documentation for the assay

• Worksheet for stakeholders in countries considering mandating fortification of rice imports

• Answers to frequently asked questions about rice fortification, including available technology and fortified kernel suppliers

• Technical considerations for rice fortification in public health in a special issue of the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

• Strategic paper prepared for the World Health Organization's Western Pacific Regional Office for factors determining the feasibility of fortifying wheat flour and rice.

English

• Map of countries with mandatory rice fortification and those where more than 75 grams of rice are available for human consumption per day.

• FFI and Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) report on the feasibility and potential coverage of fortified rice in the Africa rice supply chain

• Fortified rice has the potential to improve nutrition for 130 million people in 12 African countries

• Proposed nutrients and nutrient levels for rice fortification

• Summary of the World Food Programme's experience with rice fortification

• August 2016 presentation on evidence and current status of rice fortification and lessons learned from grain fortification

• Public and private sector experiences on rice fortification in Colombia. Also see a PowerPoint presentation based on this study.

• Scaling Up Rice Fortification in Asia, a workshop report published by Sight and Life and the World Food Programme in 2015

• Rice fortification's impact on nutrition, a peer-reviewed brief written by the Food Fortification Initiative October 2014

• World Food Programme (WFP) experiences with fortified rice, as presented by Judith Smit, Rice Fortification Manager for the WFP Regional Bureau for Asia, in April 2014

• A video explaining one extrusion rice fortification technique in English and Portuguese

• Rice fortification plan implementation: Its potential for improving micronutrient intake and steps required for implementation at scale. Food and Nutrition Bulletin, 2012, vol. 33, no. 4. S360-S372

• Implementing rice fortification: An emerging opportunity to contribute to the elimination of vitamin and mineral deficiency worldwide. Food and Nutrition Bulletin, 2012, vol. 33, no. 4, 296-307

• Rice Fortification in Developing Countries: A Critical Review of the Technical and Economic Feasibility, a 2008 publication by the U.S. Agency for International Development, A2Z, Academy for Educational Development, and the Institute of Food Technologies

Espanol

• Dinámicas de los sectores del arroz para lograr su fortificación: La experiencia de Colombia y sus lecciones

• La fortificación del grano de arroz. Un repaso de la oportunidad que representa la fortificación del grano del arroz para la población consumidora de arroz y para la industria arrocera y las opciones tecnológicas que existen para realizarla

• Resumen de las Evidencias y Situación Actual de la Fortificación del Arroz y Desafíos en la Fortificación de Granos

Seven premix steps for wheat and maize flour millers

The vitamins and minerals used in fortification are combined in a powdery blend called a premix. This is added to flour in the milling process or used to make fortified rice kernels. Premix does not affect the taste, smell, texture, or baking qualities.

Several global companies offer premix made for specific country standards. We do not endorse any premix provider; we provide technical assistance on safe handling, maintaining shelf life, and managing the premix supply.

We recommend the following steps for flour millers. See information for rice millers in the frequently asked questions.

Obtaining premix for flour or rice fortification implementation involves:

1. Purchase quality premix. Some countries, such as South Africa, maintain a list of approved premix suppliers. If your country does not use such a list, choose a supplier that has met the quality requirements set by the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) or one that follows all the Premix Best Practices.

2. Seek bids from multiple vendors. Normally mills purchase premix from one supplier for the length of a contract. The bidding process will ensure competitive pricing.

3. Inspect premix upon delivery. Mild damage to the outer cardboard container is acceptable, but water damage to the premix or tears in the inner plastic bag are not acceptable. Check the content of one box to be sure the premix has no lumps, spots, or odor.

4. Confirm the nutritional content. Each lot of premix should include a certificate of analysis. Confirm that the vitamins and minerals listed meet your country’s specifications.

5. Keep accurate records of premix use. Unusual increases or decreases in the amount of premix used indicate problems in fortification procedures.

6. Store premix well. Keep premix away from sunlight, excessive heat, and potential water damage. Use the oldest supply first.

7. Order premix in amounts that can be used before the expiration date. Premixes without vitamin A or vitamin C will maintain their nutritional benefit up to three years if stored properly. Premixes with vitamin A may only last six months. Premix suppliers will provide the exact shelf life of the product.

One way to cut costs is for milling associations to order premix in bulk, have it delivered to a central location, then divide it among association members. A few governments do this for all the industrial mills in their country.

We do not recommend that millers order nutrients individually and add them separately to flour or mix them at the mill. Nutrients have different densities, and premix suppliers blend the vitamins and minerals so that they do not clog the mill’s equipment. Using premix reduces a mill’s labor requirements and lessons the chance of error because reputable premix providers adhere to precise quality control measures.

While premix suppliers are essential partners in the fortification process, to avoid potential conflicts of interest, we do not accept annual contributions from premix companies or allow premix companies to be represented on our Executive Management Team.

For more information on how to fortify flour or rice with premix and related food fortification regulations, please refer to relevant guidelines and technical resources provided by the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) and other authoritative bodies.