Two new production units, inaugurated this week, complete this innovative and unique system: NutriGuinée, located near Conakry and NutriK, based in Kano, in northern Nigeria.
The NutriGuinée project came into being in 2017 as part of a public-private partnership with the Guinean government, which committed itself to facilitating the establishment of the plant and actively contributing to the financing of nutrition programs. Now operational, the Conakry site is the first to benefit from the Mobi'Nut industrial innovation: a mobile factory operating in a container to produce nutritional solutions as close as possible to needs, marking a new technological solution and a new mode of production within the PlumpyField® network.
NutriGuinée now manufactures the Plumpy® range of products. The company also promotes healthy growth and the "1000 first days of life" approach by distributing the Enov® range to pharmacies and health centers throughout the country.
In Guinea, malnutrition is a major public health problem, as well as being a socio-economic development problem. It affects a large part of the population, particularly children under the age of five, as well as pregnant and nursing women, in various forms. More than 200,000 children under the age of 5 suffer from acute malnutrition.
In parallel, NutriGuinée is working on the establishment of a groundnut roasting unit and is participating in a project on the "Groundnut Value Chain", in partnership with the Institute of Agronomic Research of Guinea (IRAG) and ParisTech for the improvement of the varietal range and its use as a good-quality raw material in the manufacture of nutritional solutions.
Based in Kano, northern Nigeria, NutriK was initiated by Nutriset Group in 2019 in alliance with a local partner, Dansa Foods, which specializes in the production of good-quality nutritious foods and beverages.
With a population of over 200 million, Nigeria is the largest economy in Africa. However, each year more than 500,000 children under the age of five die from malnutrition. Approximately 1.7 million Nigerian children suffer from severe acute malnutrition, and nearly one-third of the 10 million children under the age of five are chronically malnourished. In addition, the entire population of the neighbouring Sahel region (Niger, Chad) is at risk of food and nutritional insecurity.
The Kano production site, approved by the inter-agencies (UNICEF, WFP, ICRC, MSF, ACF), now manufactures and distributes the Plumpy® range of products in this particularly affected and difficult-to-access region.
These two new units, set up with the technical and financial support of the Nutriset Group, illustrate the importance today of multi-party partnerships in the fight against malnutrition and nutritional support for vulnerable population groups in middle and low-income countries: a joint-venture between the private sector and the government in Guinea within the framework of health programs, and an alliance between large French and Nigerian companies in Nigeria, both responding to high demand and the mobilization of humanitarian actors and specialized UN agencies.
"With these two new plants in Guinea and Nigeria, we are furthering a commitment made in 2005 with the creation of the PlumpyField network, which is that of nutritional autonomy, says Adeline Lescanne-Gautier, Managing Director of the Nutriset Group, attending to the inaugurations. By offering local solutions, we are responding to nutritional emergencies and building a sustainable agro-industry by offering added value through the transformation of agricultural raw materials into good-quality food with high nutritional value. »
