Healthy Starts

Background

Children and caregivers everywhere deserve the opportunity to access affordable, healthy and nutritious food. While homemade first foods remain central to young children’s diets, the reality is that many families are also choosing commercially available complementary foods (CF), and they have a right to access products that are nutritionally appropriate and safe. It is therefore critical that CF are appropriately formulated, regulated by governments, and marketed by the food industry in a transparent and responsible way.

Healthy Starts builds on ATNi’s extensive research in Infant and Young Child Nutrition (IYCN), including Breast Milk Substitutes (BMS) and CF Indexes assessing major manufacturers.

Findings revealed critical gaps in CF quality, regulation, and marketing in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where markets are dominated by imported CFs—often less affordable and not necessarily better in quality. In contrast, data show that locally produced CFs can be both nutritionally adequate and more affordable. Strengthening local CF production and regulatory frameworks is essential to ensure all CFs—whether local or imported— are appropriately marketed and meet WHO-recommended nutritional standards.

The project aims to generate insights to shape policy, finance, and program-level interventions, including public-private partnerships, investments, industry-led product formulation and marketing improvements, and government-supported nutrition programs. These efforts will enhance diets during complementary feeding phase and help prevent child wasting under age five. The focus countries are Kenya and Bangladesh. This project examines both the political economy and nutritional quality of locally available commercial (domestic and imported) and non-commercial CF.

Objectives

The objectives in phase 1 (May-December 2025) for both Kenya and Bangladesh are:

Understand food consumption patterns among older infants and young children in rural and urban contexts (considering different demographics and socio-economic status).

Assess availability of complementary foods in local markets in both urban and rural contexts in both countries, including local non-commercial CF products and staple foods, as well as commercial CF products (domestically produced and imported).

Map international companies and local companies, including small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) producing CF for the domestic market, and understanding how these can be supported to manufacture and supply healthy CF products.

Activities

The objectives will be achieved through the following research activities:

Desk research and structured individual interviews and/or focus group discussions and/or surveys with caregivers, health care professionals on the ground, and other key informants

Identifying commonly consumed and available CF (commercial and non-commercial); and

Online and on the ground structured individual interviews with the commercial CF industry, including SMEs and larger enterprises.

Outcomes

ATNi will use research findings to support stronger policy frameworks, and programmes on complementary feeding, encourage improved performance and promote the sharing of best practices. Engaging governments, development partners (UNICEF, WHO, SUN Business Network, WFP), CSOs, NGOs, the private sector, and investors globally and at national level, in Kenya and Bangladesh, ATNi will provide evidence to inform decision-making. Aligned with its impact investing agenda, ATNi will also leverage this evidence to support SME investments and enhance local production of healthy, accessible, and affordable complementary foods, driving sustainable nutrition solutions at scale.

Timeline

The projected timeline for this project is April 2025 to August 2026.

Contact Information

For more information linked to the project, please reach out to:

Marina Plyta: marina.plyta@atni.org

Healthy Starts

Project Overview

Objectives

Activities