Sanku-Project Healthy Children (East African Countries)

Sanku, a non-profit social enterprise, aims to end malnutrition by equipping small mills with everything they need to add vital nutrients to maize flour, an East African staple.

Every day, 8,000 children die and 2 billion people suffer from preventable illnesses because their diets lack essential vitamins and minerals. Fortification (i.e. adding life-saving micronutrients to food during processing) is one of the most cost-effective nutritional interventions. Despite this, it fails to reach the 6.5 billion people in developing countries who rely on small, often rural mills for most of their food.

Sanku developed technology and a business model to help these small mills, that feed the most malnourished people, to conveniently and affordably fortify staple grains.

In 2021/2022, the Eurofins Foundation contributed to the programme “Ending micronutrient malnutrition for 4 million East Africans through sustainable access to fortified flour”.

Funding allowed Sanku to:

Maintain fortification activities for 580+ mills, onboard 136 new millers into the network of fortifying mills (bringing the total number of partner mills to 750), and install 131 Dosifiers at small mills spread across Tanzania;
Offset the costs of nutrients added to flour using the margin from the sale of the bags that partner millers use to pack their flour. Millers are thus able to fortify at no extra cost to themselves, or their customers, ensuring fortified flour remains affordable for the Bottom-of-the-Pyramid consumer;
Fill the nutrition gap for nearly 3.7 million people by ensuring that families can afford to buy and eat healthy food every day;
Achieve a cost per beneficiary of approximately $0.93 per year.

In 2022/2023, the Eurofins Foundation is renewing its support to this initiative.

This project contributes to the following United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals

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