Healthy Starts 2026
Assessing the role of commercial complementary foods in children's diets in Kenya and Bangladesh
Children and caregivers everywhere deserve access to affordable, healthy, and nutritious food. While homemade foods remain central to young children’s diets, the reality is that many families are also choosing commercial complementary foods (CCF), and they have a right to products that are safe and nutritionally appropriate.
Healthy Starts is a research initiative exploring how CCF are shaping the diets of older infants and young children in Kenya and Bangladesh. While wasting, stunting, and micronutrient deficiencies remain major nutrition challenges among children under five, childhood overweight is also emerging as a concern, reflecting the growing double burden of malnutrition. These trends are occurring alongside rapid growth in the availability and consumption of commercially produced and packaged foods, including CCF.
Read the Healthy Starts 2026 report
While appropriately formulated and fortified CCF can play a positive role in young children’s diets, by providing essential nutrients in convenient forms, products high in sugar, salt, and unhealthy fats may displace more nutritious foods that children need for optimal growth and development.
Building on ATNi’s extensive research in Infant and Young Child Nutrition, assessing major manufacturers of breast-milk substitutes and CCF across markets, Healthy Starts provides a comprehensive assessment of the role of commercial complementary foods in young children’s diets, combining research on consumption, caregiver perceptions, markets and policies.
KEY FINDINGS
In both Kenya and Bangladesh, home-prepared foods continue to provide the majority of children’s dietary energy and nutrient intake. Meanwhile, commercial foods, including packaged foods and foods purchased outside the home, were found to increasingly contribute to children’s energy intake in Kenya as they grow older, with higher contributions observed among lower-income households.
Most commercial foods consumed in Kenya and Bangladesh were not CCFs, highlighting the need to look beyond CCFs alone when considering young children’s food environments. Commercial foods were generally perceived positively by caregivers in terms of convenience, healthiness, and nutritional value. Despite these perceived benefits, concerns about the safety and quality of commercial foods were widespread across both Kenya and Bangladesh, with caregivers expressing reservations about the ingredients and overall trustworthiness of some products, particularly locally produced brands.
Most children in Kenya met energy requirements and several micronutrient needs from complementary foods, but protein and fat intake remained insufficient across all age groups. Diets were dominated by starchy staples such as ugali and porridge, while nutrient-dense foods, especially animal-source foods, were often limited by affordability and feeding practices.
Similar patterns were reported in Bangladesh, where protein-rich foods such as fish and meat were often unaffordable for low-income households, which relied more heavily on semolina and rice-based dishes with lentils.
Among 87 CCF products assessed in Kenya:
- 46% met all WHO nutrient composition requirements.
- The majority met fat (100%), protein (91%), and sodium (85%) requirements.
- Only 62% met energy-density requirements.
- 59% would require a front-of-pack high sugar warning label.
- None met all WHO labelling requirements.
- Breastfeeding messages were largely absent, while nutrition claims (e.g. “no added sugar”) appeared on 95% of products.
74% of children in Kenya consumed added sugars, primarily through sweetened porridge and tea. More than 60% consumed sweet foods, sweetened beverages, and/or salty and fried foods. Commercial products were the main source of these foods, particularly among children aged 12-36 months. Sweet foods were consumed almost exclusively from commercial sources, including packaged sweets, biscuits and cakes.
A similar pattern was reported in Bangladesh, with unhealthy food consumption increasing with age, with sweets and sweetened beverages being most common, and sugar often added to improve palatability. Common concerns regarding CCFs in Bangladesh included added sugars and minimal preparation guidance, while some CCFs in Kenya encouraged adding sugar during preparation or provided instructions that could dilute nutrient content.
Bangladesh has seen rapid market growth and increasing CCF sales through informal and semi-formal channels. Kenyan manufacturers account for more than half of identified CCF companies but represent a relatively small proportion of products in the market. In both countries, local products are generally more affordable and accessible than imported alternatives, but manufacturers face challenges related to limited access to finance, fortification costs, nutrient testing, product registration, and balancing affordability with nutritional quality.
While more than half of the CCF assessed in Kenya from global manufacturers met all WHO nutrient composition requirements, none of the local or regional products assessed did. Interviews with local companies, however, highlighted ongoing efforts in both Kenya and Bangladesh to improve nutritional quality through a range of approaches including fortification, biofortification (e.g. high iron beans) and protein enrichment.