The effort to end hunger and malnutrition

Indofood participated in the 13th Asian Congress of Nutrition (“ACN”) on 4-7 August 2019 in Bali, represented by Director Axton Salim, who also sits as Co-Chair of Global Advisory Lead Group of Scaling Up Nutrition Business Network (“SBN”). He spoke on two important topics which address the UN Sustainable Development Goal 2, to end all forms of hunger and malnutrition in the world by 2030.

ACN is the largest nutrition and health-related scientific meeting in Asia, held every four years. It is organized by the Federation of Asian Nutrition Scientists (“FANS”), and joined by nutrition scientists, academics and professionals from 18 Asian countries. ACN 2019 was attended by 2,500 participants.

The introductory plenary topic was “Accelerating the End of Hunger/ Malnutrition-Role of Private Sectors”. Salim shared the stage with Professor of John Hopkins School of Public Health and Director of Center for Livable Future, Professor Martin W Bloem MD, and Dr Pungkas Bahjuri representing the Ministry of Indonesia Planning Board, the focal point of the Scaling Up Nutrition (“SUN”) Movement Coordinator Indonesia.

Salim spoke on the role of the SUN business world. SBN mobilizes private sectors with the aim to increase the availability and affordability of safe nutritious food, especially for low income consumers, through activities at global and national levels. Currently SBN has 650 members across 33 countries and can reach around 1.1 million workforces in their policies.

As a leading Total Food Solution company in Indonesia, Indofood actively participates in SBN with Salim as Co-Chair of SBN Global Advisory Group Leaders since 2014. SBN recognized Indofood’s contribution to improve nutrition such as food fortification, various CSR nutrition programs as well as the contribution of human capital development through nutrition intervention during the United Nations Millennium Development Goal era.

Salim later addressed a group of International Young Nutrition Leaders (IYouLead) from 14 countries on “Leadership on Public Private Partnership: Lesson Learned from Global SBN”.

Indofood’s commitment to nutrition and health includes the Nutrition for Workforce program and breastfeeding support, designed to improve employees’ health and wellbeing including their extended family. Other initiatives are the "First 1,000 Days" program, providing more than 200 service health posts at Indofood operations in Indonesia and the fortification of staple foods and providing affordable nutrition products.

Indofood voluntarily initiated Bogasari wheat flour fortification with iron and folic acid for anemia prevention since 1998, and it later became a mandatory of industry standard. Indofood also provides fortified complementary breastfeeding cereals under its SUN brand and healthy fortified cereal snacks - GoVit, with the affordable price of IDR500/sachet (U.S. 4 cents).

In August 2018 Indofood launched a healthy lifestyle education platform aimed at adolescent girls. This is a digital platform created in collaboration with the Faculty of Public Health - University of Indonesia and Ruangguru – and has more than eight million active users. Indofood has created over 40 short healthy lifestyle videos, accessed by more than 125,000 adolescents as active users.

Indofood also launched a local Nutrition Pitch Competition as an engaging way to invite start-ups and small-and-medium-enterprises to participate in SUN in Indonesia. This innovative approach will continue in 2019/2020 with the support of SBN. <<