1 Introduction

This short paper explores options available to the government and millers to adjust wheat and wheat flour selling prices to cover the cost of fortification and is intended to inform policy makers at federal and provincial governments. The health benefits for the population and economic gains for the country from wheat flour fortification are well known and although food fortification is considered to be a cost effective mechanism to enhance the nutritional status of the population the question of how this is to be funded in the long term is of fundamental concern to the commercial wheat flour millers and requires policy makers to make informed decisions.

The fortification of staple foods is a safe and cost-effective in the prevention of micronutrient deficiencies and has been widely practiced in developed countries for well over a century. In the case of Pakistan the fortification of wheat flour with iron, zinc, folic acid and vitamin B12 is recommended to address the micronutrient deficiencies highlighted in the National Nutrition Surveys 2011 and 2018. Fortification quality assurance processes also bring additional benefits for food safety measures.

Pakistan has long experience with examples of food fortification with legislation for mandatory fortification of edible oil dating back to 1965 and the Universal Salt Iodisation (USI) Program which was launched in 1994. More recently Pakistan has been implementing programmes for wheat flour fortification for wheat flour milled at commercial mills. While progress has been made in preparing for mandatory legislation the final steps remain to put this into place. The key objectives of this short paper are:

• To highlight the population health benefits to be gained through a programme of mandatory fortification

• To highlight the relatively low cost of fortification to the overall production costs

• To review options that Federal and Provincial Governments could consider for absorbing the additional cost of fortifying atta.