Reaching their potential

Nourishing future generations with Vitamin Angels

The critical first 1,000 days of life

Good nutrition is essential for a healthy start in life and the foundation for optimal growth and development. For pregnant women and infants, having access to the right micronutrients is especially important as a child who is well nourished in the crucial first 1,000 days of their life is ten times1 more likely to overcome life-threatening childhood diseases and will complete 4.6 more grades at school2.

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Breaking the cycle

The impact of hidden hunger or malnutrition, a deficiency in essential vitamins and minerals, starts from the moment a child is conceived and if it persists to the child’s second birthday it can impede their ability and chances of reaching their full potential in life.

Where large populations are robbed of their potential before school age the adverse impact on the future of society. Which is why, for over a decade, DSM’s Nutrition Improvement team has been working with Vitamin Angels, a non-profit organization delivering essential vitamins to children under five, and more recently to pregnant women as well as new mothers at risk of developing malnutrition.

For a brighter future for all

With our help, to date Vitamin Angels has provided 70 million children in 70 countries with vitamin A, essential to developing and maintaining healthy eyesight and for an immune system able to fight off potentially fatal illnesses.

We are also working together to deliver essential prenatal vitamins and minerals to support the health and survival of growing babies and their mothers. Every minute of every day sees our combined support provide four pregnant women with these essential nutrients. Nor are we stopping there: as one of the world’s leading vitamin producers our goal is to reach 50 million mothers by 2030 and to continue improving the lives of vulnerable individuals the world over.

Partnerships and advocacy

In addition to Vitamin Angels, DSM is a member of various coalitions and partnerships seeking to address the different forms of malnutrition, as well as shifting the food system to healthier and sustainable production and consumption.

This includes partnerships with the UN World Food Programme (WFP), Unicef, World Vision and the World Economic Forum (WEF) among others.

FReSH ideas on food

The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) programme, Food Reform for Sustainability and Health (FReSH), aims to drive sustainable and future-proof food systems, advocate the necessary dietary switches to improve peoples’ health within planetary boundaries, and understand and influence consumer behavior. We work in close cooperation with the EAT Foundation and the WBCSD partners - such as Danone, Unilever, Nestlé, Evonik, Cargill, Buhler Group and Kellogg - all while developing and promoting business solutions. We are an active member of the Leadership Committee and of various workstreams, such as ‘Proteins’, ‘Positive Nutrition’, ‘Food Loss and Waste’ and ‘True Cost of Food’.

Partners in Food Solutions

We’re a founding member of this multi-sector partnership, which also includes General Mills, Cargill, The Hershey Company, Bühler and Ardent Mills. Partners in Food Solutions serves more than 600 small and growing food companies throughout Africa, strengthening food security, improving nutrition and increasing economic development by making the food processing sector more competitive.

Sun Business Network

The Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Business Network recruits and supports companies who pledge to contribute to the improvement of global nutrition. We help with the Network’s recruitment and management of around 186 companies.

Sight and Life

Sight and Life is a humanitarian nutrition think tank aimed at eliminating all forms of malnutrition in children and women of childbearing age - thus improving the lives of the world’s most vulnerable people. We work with the organization by exchanging, co-creating and advocating new scientific insights to help those who need it most.

TIFN

TiFN is a Netherlands-based public-private organization that pursues fundamental research in food and nutrition. Natural economic social and consumer sciences work closely together. TiFN has a strong focus on pre-competitive, long-term, strategic research. DSM collaborates with TiFN in different fields, some of which are nutrition and health, sustainable protein processing, sensory and structure.

UNICEF

We work with UNICEF to deliver better nutrition to at-risk children and mothers in Nigeria. Guided by the UN Sustainable Development Goal number two (ending hunger), our partnership focuses on nourishing mothers and children during the crucial first 1,000 days of children’s lives, from conception until age two. Another goal is to spur similar action in other countries where malnutrition is rife, as well as advocating best practices in micronutrient supplementation worldwide. 

Vitamin Angels

Vitamin Angels is dedicated to reducing child mortality among at-risk populations worldwide by advancing the availability, access and use of essential micronutrients, especially vitamin A. We work with Vitamin Angels to help expand their global reach and impact, especially in their efforts to work with local NGOs on locally sustainable micronutrient supply and distribution systems.

World Food Programme (WFP)

The DSM-WFP partnership, Improving Nutrition, Improving Lives, is stronger than ever since its inception in 2007, boosting the nutritional value of the food that the WFP distributes to vulnerable people. In fact, around 39.4 million people were nourished through our partnership in 2017. We also work with the WFP on training and development initiatives and employee fundraising campaigns.

World Vision

DSM and World Vision work together in a nutrition partnership that creates shared value for all stakeholders, including consumers. Our work involves investing in ways to get nutritionally improved foods to the most vulnerable people – through staple food fortification and bold new delivery systems for nutritionally improved food.

1) https://thousanddays.org
2) https://thousanddays.org

Published 23 Aug 2019

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