Natural Nutri-nut Spread

The Problem and Approach • Forty eight percent of children in Sub-Saharan Africa suffer

from symptoms of Vitamin A deficiency leading to blindness.

• The Peanut CRSP GP3M Team brought its Vitamin A fortification technology for peanut spreads, developed and commercialized in a previous project in the Philippines.

• A public-private partnership was formed, involving collaboration between Makarere University (MU), the Peanut CRSP GP3M Team and a small enterprise, Food Engravers, as the Industrial Partner

• An enhancement of an existing formulation for a Vitamin A fortified spread, named Nutri-Nut was developed. The enhanced formulation was more stable, as a result of added stabilizer to enhance shelf-life, and was lower in cost as a result of the addition of fortificant as opposed to the current practice of obtaining the Vitamin A directly from more expensive ingredients.

GP3M Investigators, Dr. Anna Resurreccion and Dr. Manjeet Chinnan with Ugandan Food Scientist, Dr. Archileo Kaaya discussing product design,

formulation and process development

Peanut CRSP technologies were used in food formulation and process evelopment

• The fortification ingredients and process development were obtained from Peanut CRSP technologies and adopted for processing conditions in Uganda.

• Using pilot plant facilities at MU, the GP3M Team and MU Investigator provided technical assistance to the company in research toward the development of the formulation of the peanut spread.

• Use of stabilizer promoted longer shelf life of the product, as determined from research conducted at MU and previously reported at the Institute of Food Technologists Annual Meeting in June, 2012.

Nutri-nut entrepreneur, Joseph with GP3M Engineer Dr. Chinnan

Natural Nutri-Nut Vitamin A Spread

Consumer Acceptance Tests During the Uganda Manufacturers Association International Fair, October 4-10, 2012 Food Engravers offered the new Vitamin A fortified Nutri-Nut product for sale and conducted consumer acceptability trials to entice product sales.

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Consumer sensory acceptance and purchase intent were measured

• The taste tests were conducted to determine consumer acceptance and purchase intent. Between October 5 and October 8 more than 200 visitors to the Fair tasted and evaluated the new Nutri-Nut spread, Consumers rated the product between “like extremely and like very much” with only a few consumers rating the product lower. Purchase intent was toward the “will buy” side of the scale and ‘very highly acceptable.’

• Food Engravers sold their supply of spread available for purchase each day. The price of 5,000 Uganda shillings per jar, a relatively high price for the average consumer was not a deterrent to purchase.

• The additional information collected during the test on willingness to pay will provide additional market information to Food Engravers once it becomes analyzed. It is worth mentioning that the Food Engravers staff was trained by the UGA Team in sorting peanut to eliminate aflatoxin-contaminated peanuts and offers a safe product to consumers. The scientific results of the study presented at the IFT annual meeting in June 2012 in the United States is being prepared for submission to a scientific journal.

New Natural Nutri-nut Spread