Royal DSM N.V., the Netherlands headquartered global life sciences and materials sciences company is looking at the bottom of the pyramid market in India for bringing in their micronutrient business.
DSM plans to bring in its rice fortification programme to India and is ready to demonstrate the benefits of rice fortification to fight micronutrient malnutrition, Nico Gerardu, member, managing board, DSM N.V. said.
This has been in testing phase in India and China and the pilot project has demonstrated that these micronutrients did improve health of the people involved in the pilots being carried out in southern parts of India as it is a staple diet there, Gerardu said.
In India, the average consumption of milled rice is around 200 kg per year. This rice just provides mass and lacks in micronutrients, points our Gerardu.
Fortification has been identified as one of the better ways to provide people with minerals and vitamins in the diet in order to prevent overt and debilitating disease linked to micronutrient malnutrition. Rice is the major staple food in India for 65% of the population, particularly for the poor. ?It is the staple food of a significant percentage of the population so rice fortification has extraordinary potential to combat malnutrition in India,? he said.
DSM Nutritional Products is an integrated producer of vitamins and other nutrients that supplies premix blends for simple and accurate food fortification. DSM Nutritional supplies vitamins and carotenoids to the feed, food, pharma and cosmetic industries. The DSM technology produces fortified extruded rice-shaped grains, made of rice flour and one or more micronutrients consisting of but not restricted to iron, vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin D, vitamin B12, folic acid, zinc, thiamine, riboflavin, pyridoxine and niacin.
These rice-shaped grains are combined with traditional rice kernels in a blend ratio ranging from 1:50 to 1:200, depending on the desired target fortification level.