Daily Maverick: Fortification assessment — the little things put in your bread by big companies
13 November 2025The Access to Nutrition initiative has assessed the world’s largest fortificant producers, with only four out of 11 fully engaging with the process. It is calling for greater transparency — considering the immense public health benefit micronutrients could provide.
Sedonia Peterson (43), a civil worker, stands by the roadworks in Brixton, Johannesburg. Her favourite starch to accompany food is pap and she usually has a tomato gravy alongside it, or eggs, or atcha. She’s not a veggie lover, but she likes salads now (if they are not soggy).
“I’m an old-school girl, I like dumplings, vetkoek, rotis,” Peterson told Daily Maverick. She buys flour rather than bread, because TikTok has recipes. She likes porridge mielie meal in the mornings, and she loves a thick slice of bread with butter.
Nearby is an assistant shopkeeper, Brian Chauke* (18). Seven days a week on the way to work, he buys a plain vetkoek.
“I eat pap like seven days a week,” he said. Sometimes he has a tomato gravy, sometimes he eats it with vegetables.
Staples like pap and bread are fortified with essential micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) to improve the nutritional quality of the food supply. Many South Africans eat mielie meal at least once a day. It’s cheap and filling, as Peterson said.
According to the Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice & Dignity group, about 30.4 million people in South Africa live on R55 a day, and 13.8 million on R27 a day. That’s the upper-bound poverty line and the food poverty line.
Only flour and sifted and unsifted maize meal are fortified by legal requirements in South Africa. However, there is a lack of compliance in the country.
Fortificants are the source of micronutrients, while micronutrient premixes refer to the mixture of fortificants that are added to a food vehicle, according to Unicef.
Fortification companies compile the micronutrient premixes, sell those to various companies, such as Nestlé and General Mills, or independent small millers, and NGOs such as the World Food Programme (which receives its premixes from DSM-Firmenich). Companies then add the premix into the food or beverage, and then it goes to retail stores.
These companies up the value chain have to take into consideration the concentration of the fortificant (so it’s effective and safe) as well its absorptive properties, stability, and how it’ll taste.
As of November 2023, Millhouse International (Pty) Ltd, Hexagon Nutrition (Exports) Pvt Ltd, Mobile Therapy CC t/a MJ Labs, and DSM Nutritional Products South Africa are the only government-registered fortification suppliers for import in South Africa.
However, SternVitamin GmbH & Co. KG, BASF SE, DSM-Firmenich AG and Glanbia PLC also operate in South Africa.
Hexagon, SternVitamin, BASF, DSM-Firmenich and Glanbia are some of the companies assessed by ATNi. ATNi (Access to Nutrition initiative) assessed the companies to see how they preserve quality down the value chain – so that people actually consume the micronutrients inside the foods.