mana nutrition Expands MANA Expands to Address Malnutrition in the U.S. by Joy Crosby
F
itzgerald is a small town in South Central Georgia with a population of 8,470. Even though the town is small in population, it is helping feed millions of children. It is home to MANA Nutrition, a nutrition-based company which has helped nearly 5.5 million children since its creation in 2009. The company is predicted to feed an additional 1 million children in 2022 alone. MANA Nutrition produces readyto-use therapeutic food (RUTF); a fortified peanut paste designed specifically to treat children diagnosed with severe acute malnutrition. On average, three packets of MANA per day for six weeks will save the life of a starving child. MANA Nutrition also seeks to spread awareness of severe acute malnutrition and find creative ways to get RUTF to the millions of children who need it each year. Early Development of RUTF The fortified peanut paste, made by MANA Nutrition, was developed by Mark Manary, M.D., a pediatrician who currently serves as the Helene Roberson Professor of Pediatrics at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, and a nutrition research team from Doctors Without Borders. In the 90s, Manary spent time in Gambia, New Guinea and Malawi working with malnourished children and studying the traditional method of treating malnutrition at the time, which consisted of hospitalbased care and a milk-based formula. According to Manary, he was dismayed to find that recovery rates for malnourished children were no better in 1999 than they were when he first worked in Africa in 1985; only about 25-40 percent of children recovered. So, work began to come up with a better solution. Manary continued to explore home-based therapy options and
Mark Moore, CEO of MANA Nutrition, speaks at the ground breaking ceremony for the expansion of MANA Nutrition in Fitzgerald, Ga.
began working with Dr. André Briend, who worked with the World Health Organization and Nutriset, a French company that produced early versions of RUTF. Manary and Briend experimented with various ingredients until they created a formula that provided the specific, high-quality nutrition severely malnourished children needed to recover. The food became known as Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF). RUTF is an energy-dense, peanut butter like paste, but it is more than just peanut butter. It consists of roasted ground peanuts (peanut paste), powdered milk, vegetable oil, sugar, and vitamins/minerals. Peanuts contain mono-unsaturated fats, which are easy to digest, and they are rich in protein and zinc, which is good for the immune system. RUTF’s intended use is for severely malnourished children ages 6 months to 5 yrs. From 2000 to 2004, the doctors and their small teams tested various formulas with thousands of malnourished children in a series of controlled clinical trials within Malawi. The Georgia Peanut Commission provided funding for some of the
22 Southeastern Peanut Farmer | July/August 2022
initial trials which resulted in 95 percent of the children recovering. This led to the development of Project Peanut Butter which began producing food in Malawi in 2004. In 2007, the United Nations, World Health Organization, and World Food Programme recognized RUTF with home-based therapy as the standard of care for severely malnourished children worldwide. Today, Project Peanut Butter continues to produce RUTF locally in the countries where the product is needed and uses many local ingredients to support local economies and build stronger communities by providing jobs for farmers, factory workers, administrators, nurses and more. RUTF Development in the U.S. While Project Peanut Butter focuses their efforts on development of RUTF within the countries where the need is greatest, there wasn't a facility producing RUTF in the U.S. In steps a former missionary in Uganda and U.S. Senate legislative staff member who learned more about RUTF and the impact the product made in saving children's lives.
