The Food System Follows its Incentives: MarketFit Nutrition 2035 is Here to Change Them

6 May 2026 — ATNi (Access to Nutrition initiative) launches MarketFit Nutrition 2035 in collaboration with Improved Nutrition Advocacy Foundation, BlueOrchard, Bopinc, and the African Population Health Research Centre (APRHC).

What is MarketFit Nutrition?

MarketFit Nutrition 2035 is a multi-partner, multi-country initiative designed to help countries realign market incentives so that by 2035 more than half of their food and beverage sales come from healthier, more sustainable products.

Learn more about MarketFit Nutrition

Why now?

Our food system is failing to support healthy populations. While diet-related disease has rapidly become the leading cause of preventable death globally, our food system continues to incentivise cheap, less healthy, (ultra-)processed and packaged foods at the expense of nutritious alternatives. Meanwhile, modern retail is expanding rapidly—particularly in low- and middle-income countries—while nutritious options remain less available, less desirable and less affordable. The demand for healthier food exists but the system is not designed to meet it. A systems-level market transformation approach is needed to shift the incentives that drive what food companies produce and what investors finance—this is the critical intersection where MarketFit Nutrition operates.

How does MarketFit Nutrition work?

MarketFit Nutrition consists of four complementary pillars, each led by a specialized partner organization and implemented with national institutions. These include:

1. National Corporate Accountability to strengthen national capacity to monitor and benchmark food companies using adapted ATNi tools and national nutrient profiling models, enabling governments, investors and civil society to track company performance and improve accountability. Led by ATNi and pre-selected local organizations.
2. Investment and Financing for Nutrition to mobilize investors and development finance institutions to integrate nutrition metrics into ESG frameworks and direct capital toward nutritious food businesses. This pillar includes conducting a feasibility study including exploring new financing mechanisms to channel capital toward national food companies. Led by BlueOrchard with ATNi’s Investors in Nutrition & Health
3. Business Models and Demand Creation to support food companies to reformulate products, expand healthier portfolios and improve distribution models that reach low-income consumers. Partnerships and pre-competitive platforms aim to strengthen demand for nutritious foods through responsible marketing and consumer engagement. Led by Bopinc.
4. Policy and Market-Shaping Regulation to support governments to design policies that improve food environments, including nutrient profiling models, labelling systems, fiscal policies and incentives that encourage healthier food production and consumption. Led by policy research institutions, including APHRC, in close collaboration with governments.

Across all pillars, MarketFit Nutrition includes a Nutrition Transformation Hub to ensure locally-hosted AI-enabled digital platforms provide benchmarking tools, real-time analytics and shared data for governments, investors, companies—supporting evidence-based decision-making and accountability.

Target Countries

Current target countries include mostly low- and middle-income countries in Africa and Southeast Asia, with potential for high-income countries such as the UK. Combined, these countries constitute a population of over 900 million people, of which 40% are children under the age of 18. The country selection is based on the size and maturity of their formal food markets, government demand, national and international stakeholder interest.

Partnership Opportunity

MarketFit is designed as a collaborative, multistakeholder initiative bringing together governments, investors, businesses, research institutions and civil society. Inception funding has been secured from the Gates Foundation, the Waterloo Foundation, and the UK FCDO. Additional donors can play a catalytic role by supporting the first implementation phase (2026–2030) and helping unlock larger public and private investment flows into nutritious food systems.

If you would like to explore partnership or funding opportunities, please reach out to Greg Garrett, Executive Director at ATNi: greg.garrett@atni.org