Mühlenchemie
Award for the campaign against malnutrition
Mühlenchemie is helping to ensure a better supply of folate and iron to nearly 80 million Egyptians – Ahrensburg company wins the FFI Leadership Award for the flour fortification programme
Ahrensburg/ Arusha (Tanzania), February 2009. At the first African Flour Fortification Workshop held in Tanzania at the end of last year, Mühlenchemie GmbH & Co. KG was granted the FFI Leadership Award. Markus Bostel, Mühlenchemie’s Area Sales Director Africa/Middle East and Dr. Mohammed Labenah, manager of the Mühlenchemie distributor Chemitec received the award in Arusha. It is granted annually by the Flour Fortification Initiative (FFI) to companies, institutions and individuals that show outstanding commitment in the campaign against malnutrition. The award went to Mühlenchemie because the company will in future fortify over 70 percent of the flour produced in Egypt with folate and iron.
Folate deficiency causes birth defects in thousands of women every year. In children an undersupply of iron results in poor performance and retarded development. 80 percent of the wheat consumed in Egypt is used for baking the popular baladi bread. Since many mills are state-owned the government in Cairo started, in March 2008, an initiative to fortify the basic food flour with iron and folate in the context of the United Nations World Food Programme. Mühlenchemie impressed both the staff of the World Food Programme and the Egyptian Ministry of Social Solidarity with its holistic approach consisting of consultancy, training, and provision of the relevant technical equipment together with the necessary vitamin mix. Since March the Ahrensburg company, that specializes in solutions for flour treatment and flour improvement and supplies over 120 markets around the globe, has been implementing flour fortification in Egypt. Besides giving comprehensive advice to the initiators of the national programme, local Mühlenchemie representatives have so far installed dosing devices in over 150 public mills. They have also trained the millers in flour treatment and are supplying a total of more than 320 tons of nutrient premixes for iron and folate.
“It was important to us for the millers on the spot to be able to use the premixes quickly and correctly. That can only be achieved with comprehensive advice and training. This approach will ensure that 70 percent of Egypt’s total flour production can in future be fortified with iron and folate”, says Markus Bostel, the Mühlenchemie employee responsible for the programme.
This is an important goal of the FFI too, an international association of universities, public institutions and private companies. Fortification of the basic food flour with vitamin A, iron, zinc and the “B” vitamins, including folate, can help combat disease and reduce the mortality rate. That is especially important in Africa and Asia, where vitamin and mineral deficiency is widespread due to malnutrition.
