Devex: What’s the business case for investing in nutrition?
30 September 2026Hi from Accra, Ghana! This week I’m at the Micronutrient Forum 7th Global Conference, the triennial gathering of nutrition experts.
What started as a scientific conference in 2007 has evolved into something much broader, now featuring health officials, philanthropies, and businesses, which joined forces to discuss how to deliver essential micronutrients to some 2 billion people worldwide who are deficient in them. This year’s theme — “Nutrition at the Frontiers of a Changing Environment” — could not be more prescient, amid conflict, climate change, and foreign aid cuts that are all driving more people into acute hunger.
Science and innovation are still fundamental. As one speaker put it last night, talk to anyone here about fortified bouillon seasoning cubes and their eyes will light up. (More on that in a minute.)
But in Accra there’s something else I’ve noticed too, and it’s been building across global nutrition discussions over the years: There are more private-sector players than ever at the table, and the nutrition sector is slowly and carefully figuring out how to work alongside them in the service of healthier diets for everyone. One organization trying to bring all sides together is the Access to Nutrition initiative, which aims to push food and beverage companies toward healthier, more nutritious products through its accountability index and pressure from investors.
“The food industry shapes what billions of us are eating every day and they do a very good job shaping that. So they’re clearly part of the problem, but they’re also clearly part of the solution,” ATNi’s CEO Greg S Garrett said Monday at a session his group co-hosted on the “nutrition imperative for business.” After all, businesses won’t act without a profit incentive. African enterprises such as GB Foods and Arise Foods joined finance experts from TechnoServe and the International Finance Corporation, the World Bank’s private sector arm, to discuss how to steer businesses toward better nutrition, such as via financing for new ingredients and machinery.
The Micronutrient Forum doesn’t accept money from entities that market or sell tobacco, use child labor, or violate the World Health Organization marketing code on breast milk substitutes. It also uses ATNi’s benchmarks to screen out companies that don’t generate at least 50% of sales from healthy products, or whose core business is to produce alcohol or ultra-processed foods. That has disqualified most Big Food firms from sponsoring events here, though they can still attend. (But I haven’t seen many big multinationals — it’s mostly small- and medium-sized enterprises.)
“The trust is building,” the forum’s Executive Director Saskia Osendarp tells me of the relationship between nutrition experts and the private sector. “You have to start with a coalition of the willing.”