Open Survey: Developing a Certification Stamp for Nutrient Enriched Products
HarvestPlus has launched a global survey for expert stakeholders with an interest in consumer health and food systems to join in a search for the perfect signpost. The signpost will inform customers and consumers about the benefits of nutrient-enriched crops, grains, and foods.
A key element of HarvestPlus’ work to is to expand the use and adoption of nutrient-enriched crops and foods in the global food system. This will ensure the sustainability of biofortified food systems, generating demand for farmers, and helping to reach millions of consumers with nutritious products.
As part of this effort, we are developing a certification program to help consumers identify products made with high-quality, nutrient-enriched ingredients. HarvestPlus is gathering input from the agri-food sector and food industry stakeholders worldwide on a key element of this program: a certification stamp to be used as a consumer signpost on packaging and marketing materials for biofortified products. The stamp will signify to customers and consumers that the product contains genuine nutrient-enriched grains that have been certified by experts at HarvestPlus.
Please assist us in this effort by taking a short survey where you can share your views on the demand for this type of service and your opinion on the stamp/mark/logo. We seek input from all types and sizes of agri-food businesses, large and small, and in any region
In doing this work we will create more demand from consumers for nutrient-enriched crops and foods; we will also help consumers make better nutrition choices. This will increase our partnerships with the food industry, raise awareness of the mission of HarvestPlus and drive investment in the science and delivery of nutrient-enriched crops.
The survey is open until November 14th 2020 and the results will be reported and published in December.
About HarvestPlus and biofortification:
Naturally improving the nutrient delivery of plant-based foods through biofortification is a scientifically-backed way to improve food systems and consumer health. The mission of HarvestPlus is to reach 1 billion consumers with biofortified foods by 2030, which requires support and buy-in from food industry players worldwide.
HarvestPlus is the leading expert in delivering biofortified crops to hard-to-reach consumer groups. These nutritious and GM-free crops, grains, and foods are in demand by everyone from low-resource farming households to very affluent consumers in all corners of the globe. Quantifying demand from the food industry with tools like this survey will go a long way to help scale and incentivize more growers to be involved.
Nutrient-enriched or biofortified foods provide a natural source of essential vitamins and minerals to consumers and populations. To date, HarvestPlus-facilitated biofortified crops have reached 8.5 million farming households, and this achievement has been made possible through the future-oriented thinking of several donors looking for sustainable investments to reduce malnutrition.
This simple but ground-breaking technology to improve the nutrient delivery of foods is now available to the food industry. There are multiple ways to implement it, from joining a social movement with industry bodies which have the potential to improve the entire food system, to proprietary food innovation that will give individual food business a unique competitive edge.