Status and Compliance of Flour Fortification by Selected Commercial Maize Mills in Kenya

Abstract

Maize is a widely consumed staple food in Kenya. In 2012, the Government enacted mandatory legislation for maize and wheat flour fortification. This intervention was meant to reduce the prevalence of micronutrient deficiencies in the population. Despite this effort, the inclusion of fortification as part of routine milling process has remained a major challenge and most mills have no knowledge or capacity to run safe and sustainable flour fortification processes. This has been intensified by the decline in maize production and safety issues around its production, storage, processing and use. This study aimed at characterizing the commercial maize mills, determining the status and compliance of flour fortification and the retention capacity of key vitamins in fortified maize flour. Questionnaires were used as a guide for data collection on the industry characteristics while compliance and stability studies were carried out through laboratory analyses. The survey tool contained information on mill characteristics, level of training of employees, the status of implementation of flour fortification programs and food safety issues. A total of 27 brands were also procured from the market and analyzed for compliance with the national standards for vitamin A, vitamin B2, vitamin B3, vitamin B9, iron and zinc. The retention capacity of micronutrients in fortified maize flour stored at 25ºC/RH 60 % and 35ºC/RH 75% for six months was also quantified. A total of 22 large, 25 medium and 31 small scale mills were surveyed. Most of the mills used roller milling technology except at small scale level where about 14% were using hammer mills. Despite the large diversity in number of employees, over 52% of the mills had less than 20% trained personnel per factory. All the large-scale mills implemented flour fortification programs, while the practice among medium and small- scale maize mills was implemented at 45.8% and 24.1% respectively. The key challenges to fortification implementation and compliance were related to low quality of dosers (69.6%) and premixes (34%), high cost of premixes (45%) and lack of skills in fortification practice and standards (55%). The level of compliance of fortified maize flour to national standards was low with only 11.1% of the samples complying in all the micronutrients analyzed (vitamin A, vitamin B2, vitamin B3, vitamin B9, iron, and zinc) and Compliance status for specific micronutrients to national standards varied greatly with minerals having higher compliance levels than vitamins. About a fifth (18%) of the samples from the market did not comply with any micronutrient analyzed. The retention of the vitamins analyzed was significantly affected by storage conditions time, temperature and relative humidity (P<0.05). Low retention was observed for storage at 35 ºC/RH 75 % compared to 25 ºC/RH 60 %. There was evidence of low adoption of fortification programs and compliance, and safety gaps in the maize milling industry. There is, thus, need for concerted effort toward strengthening maize fortification practices among the commercial mills in the country.