The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) has partnered with various organizations to launch the Fortify Forward Innovation Challenge 2025, a competition targeting East and West Africa. The challenge calls for innovative solutions aimed at improving food nutrition through fortification with essential micronutrients and biofortified crops, addressing critical gaps across the food value chain.
Micronutrient deficiencies are widespread in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, with severe health and economic consequences. These deficiencies elevate the risk of infections, hinder child growth, and negatively impact productivity and education. In Sub-Saharan Africa alone, 90% of women and 98 million preschool-aged children suffer from these deficiencies (Lancet).
The Fortify Forward Innovation Challenge 2025 invites applications until February 28, 2025, from a diverse range of participants including entrepreneurs, startups, researchers, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), food producers, and agricultural stakeholders in eight countries: Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Benin, and Nigeria.
The challenge offers US$ 5,000 for each of the ten selected winners. The competition seeks innovative approaches that improve access to essential vitamins and minerals through either large-scale industrial food fortification or biofortified crops. Winners will be chosen across three categories:
1. Profitable and sustainable business models for food fortification
2. Addressing challenges of aggregation and segregation in biofortification
3. Innovative vehicles for fortifying food
The initiative is organized by GAIN and supported by a number of key partners, including The Waterloo Foundation, the Funguo Program by the United Nations Development Programme-Tanzania, DSM-Firmenich, NMB Foundation, the Alliance of Biodiversity & CIAT, and the University of Abomey Calavi-Benin. The challenge aims to enhance the nutritional quality of staple foods across African value chains, from farm to fork.
In addition to the cash prize, winners will receive technical assistance to scale and implement their solutions, expert mentorship, training, visibility, and networking opportunities. Industrial food fortification and biofortification are long-term, sustainable solutions to tackling micronutrient deficiencies across the continent.
Commenting on the challenge, GAIN’s Executive Director Lawrence Haddad emphasized, “Our vision is to promote healthier and more nutritious diets in Africa while building sustainable, equitable, and resilient food systems. The Fortify Forward Innovation Challenge supports this goal by focusing on scalable and sustainable innovations for food fortification, which is essential for tackling malnutrition and building a healthier future for Africa.”
To be eligible for the *Fortify Forward Innovation Challenge*, applicants must be based in one of the participating countries and present proven, workable solutions from various sectors, including agriculture, food processing, logistics, nutrition, public health, and agrotechnology. Innovations should have been tested and operational for at least a year, with plans to scale and address nutritional deficiencies through food fortification (both industrial food fortification and biofortification).
For more details and to apply, visit the official challenge website before the February 28 deadline.
Source: https://nutritionconnect.org/en/FortifyForward