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BASF’s mission to help customers become more successful through research and development partnerships has led to the development of UV absorber for plastic bottles which protects vitamin A in oil from degradation and rancidity.

The idea for UV absorbers for vitamin A was conceived in December 2004 when BASF’s Dr. Soendergaard was invited to join a Vitamin A multi-stakeholder meeting entitled ‘Preserve Retinol in Fortified Foods’ in Washington DC discussing the stability of vitamin A. When the discussion came to oil it was made clear that consumers in most countries prefer to buy vegetable oil in transparent bottles despite this increasing vitamin A degradation. At that time light absorbers were known but added a distinguished colour to the bottle-yellow or amber.

BASF took this challenge back to Germany and with the help of Dr. Schambony-the global coordinator of the light absorbers in the Performance Chemicals unit-who had been working on similar packaging ideas at the time, an UV absorber for use in PET bottles: Uvinul® S-Pack was developed.

BASF’s high research and development standards meant that in the following years the performance was tested and optimized with beta-carotene and Vitamin A. It was also necessary to have the product approved for food use.

The result is a cost-effective solution which offers an increase of the shelf life for oil by a factor of 7: At the end of a product’s shelf life there is much more vitamin A retained in the oil and the likelihood of rancidity due to bright storage conditions is reduced. This means marginal cost to oil producers but a higher quality product with more vitamin A reaching the consumer, the decisive indicator for successful food-fortification programs.

For further information please see Coating & Plastic Chemicals or contact Dr. Schambony.

In December 2007 BASF Social Foundation in partnership with UNICEF conducted the first Christmas Employee Donation Initiative of BASF SE, Ludwigshafen site.

The Initiative, aimed at combating malnutrition, combines BASF´s corporate social responsibility (100 TEU), employee’s donations (125 TEU), and as another innovative component, in-kind technical support (50 TEU) provided by the BASF Food-Fortification team. This in-kind expert support, gained from 60 years working for improved nutrition, will complement sUNICEF’s project efforts in the field. The successful Christmas Donation Initiative raised in total 275,000 Euro, about 2.800 employees participated.

The two selected UNICEF projects receiving the funds and expert support are located in India and the Democratic Republic of Congo (“DRC”), where vitamin and mineral deficiency malnutrition is severe among the vulnerable and poor population groups.

In India, according to latest data, 74% of children between 6 and 36 months are affected by this malnutrition. The BASF funded project aims at complementing traditional foods provided to children and families through supplementation from small vitamin sachets (‘home fortification’).

In the DRC, 96,000 children die every year from vitamin A deficiency related diseases. The supported project is almost innovative as it has got a market-orientated profile and aims at enriching staple foods consumed by deficient and poor populations in a sustainable way. This project alone will benefit over 2 million families.

With regard to the innovative collaboration of UNICEF, the BASF Social Foundation and BASF’s food-fortification team, Ian Darton-Hill, head of UNICEF Nutrition in New York, stated: “When the technical capacities of a globally leading company meet the companies and employees humanitarian commitment and UNICEF´s field presence for a concerted effort, I am confident that we developed sustainable cost-effective scaled model solution to the global challenge of malnutrition”.

The BASF Social Foundation and the BASF food-fortification team would like to thank the BASF employees and additional partners, such as GAIN, for jointly supporting and realizing this innovative charitable approach towards reducing child malnutrition.

In 2007, BASF celebrated five years of engagement in the humanitarian challenge of micronutrient malnutrition through food-fortification. BASF has been involved in the nutrition business for over 60 years and therefore has gained considerable expertise. For five years, this expertise has been made available through BASF’s multi-domestic presence to partners, customers and the people across the developing world.

The idea of engaging for improved nutrition where it is needed most was conceived by two BASF Business Nutrition Unit employees, passionate about the challenge of alleviating malnutrition in an economically sustainable way. They recognized the fit between their idea and BASF’s strengths and its long history of corporate responsibility, as well as the Company being a founding member of the United Nations Global Compact.

BASF addresses the food fortification challenge through partnering with industry, governmental and non-governmental organisations. The provision of analytic capacity, technical training and other forms of value adding support helped kick-off and sustain food-fortification partnerships and projects in many countries.

These partnerships are the most efficient and effective means to deliver and distribute enriched nutritious staple foods in communities. Therefore, BASF thinks ‘alliance’ and walks this talk, also through collaborating with leading scientific institutions.

Thanks also to our partners from academia, public, private and the not-for profit sector, BASF today is a leading provider of food-fortification solutions, including the fortification of sugar, dairy and oil in many developing countries in Africa, Asia and South America.

On 22nd of November, a multi-stakeholder dialogue on ‘Micronutrient Deficiencies’ formed part of the annual Global Compact Leaning Forum in Accra (Ghana). The Global Compact Forum brought together some 160 Global Compact Participants from around the world to learn from various corporate citizenship projects and approaches.

This special session on Micronutrient Deficiencies united various domestic and international stakeholders in ‘hidden-hunger’ to review and learn from the multi-stakeholder model applied successfully by the Ghana National Food-Fortification Alliance (NFFA).

Some 40 participants and 7 panelists contributed to this dialogue kicked-off by Christy Banya, UNDP Private Sector Focal Point for the Ghana Global Compact. Through his inspiring keynote address, Prof. Klaus Leisinger, UN Special Advisor on the Global Compact, opened up the discussion which outlined on the various dimensions and causalities of hunger and the according need for integrated solutions.

Dr. Jacob Aarmah, NFFA Chairman Ghana, then elaborated the national multi-stakeholder response, namely the fortification of staple foods, aimed at controlling micronutrient deficiencies in Ghana. Here, local food industries work hand-in-hand with multi-domestic companies, civil society, nutrition scientists, the government and the UN in tackling vitamin- and mineral deficiencies. Participants discussed this model with a view to further partnerships in nutrition and related health challenges in Ghana.

Dr. Andreas Blüthner, representing BASF’ s Micronutrient Initiative, outlined the global human, societal and economic challenges arising form hidden-hunger - including the negative impact on the UN Millennium Goals, the Global Compact and the realization of the human right to food. With food-fortification and supplementation, he continued, there are cost-effective and proven interventions available. Programs in more than 20 countries are delivering measurable results at scale, including those people suffering hardest from deficiencies. BASF’s collaboration with local industry and public sector partners, he concluded, illustrates that business based on it’s core competencies can become part of sustainable solutions to global challenges.
Finally, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and UNICEF, the executing agency of Ghana’s National Food Fortification Alliance, underscored the role of United Nations can play for improving nutrition of most vulnerable groups. Whereas UNICEF is broadly engaged with a special focus on mothers and children under 5 years age, the WFP supports locally produced fortified food for UN emergency relief.

In wrapping-up, Professor Agyemang Badu Akosa, Director General of the Ghana Health Service, stressed the interest of the public sector in integrated partnership models as being the way forward in successful food fortification projects. He urged to expand private sector engagement beyond food-fortification by citing the Tetra Pak School Feeding Program in Nigeria presented and discussed earlier in the workshop noting that this was a ‘very interesting example’. Participants noticedthat the program could deliver multiple benefits for education, nutrition and domestic agriculture. Prof. Akosa further acknowledged the newly developed rapid field test kit for fortified flour that was handed over.

Participants agreed, to follow-up on diverse opportunities for public-private partnerships in improved nutrition and health in Ghana. The workshop was convened by one of the Global Compact's founding participants, BASF.

BASF and our local partner HighChem arranged a meeting with stakeholders from Ministry, NGO's, Consumer Association and Industry with the aim of discussion about possibilities for fortification of staple food in Mozambique. Vitamin A Deficiency is wide spread in the country. A vitamin A supplementation program is already running, but may not cover the entire populations needs. of the entire population in need.

BASF and the local distributor Polychimie, together with Mühlenchemie arranged a seminar with the theme: "Food Fortification In West Africa". Among the audience of around 30 people we had representatives from the oil industry, flour millers, consumer organizations, Shawn Baker HKI, Ministry of Health and more. Guest speakers from Ivory Coast could also related about their experiences from oil fortification project already running in the country.

BASF and the local representative Siltek Distribution Dynamics arranged a seminar on food fortification at the Holiday Inn, Lusaka. More than 50 people,representing all stakeholders in the food fortification area participated. The honorable deputy minister of health Mr. Kazenene spoke about the severity of vitamin A deficiency in the country. Zambia has been fortifying sugarwith vitamin A since late 90's, but has realized this is not enough to cope with the problem. Therefore, Zambia will commence with thefortification of maize meal in order to intensify fighting against the threat to human survival in Zambia. Photo - from left to right: Kieth Miller/SILTEK, Dr. Mwewa/Ministry of Heath, Claus Sondergaard/BASF, Hon Dept. Minister Kazenene/Ministry of Health, Daniela Dempf/German Embassy, Marco Sterz/BASF.