on and of monitoring both the level of compliance by industry and the level of impact the intervetion is having on the consumer.
Mandatory fortification does have its problems as it usually requires extensive and widespread consultation with interested parties (academia, heath professionals, consumer groups, industry, legislature etc) which, by its very nature, causes considerable delays in implementation (in South Africa it took over 8 years to get the intervention off the ground).
Nevertheless concensus was finally reached (albeit a compromise rather than an optimised solution) due to the persistance and support of key decision makers.
It must also be realised that fortification is not a curative intervention but a preventative one. It has a cost implication but fortification is widely recognised as being the most cost effective means of improving the nutritional status of the population. The cost is so low that I have not encountered a situation over the past 10 years in which the added cost of the micronutrients in a typical consumer pack of fortified product has exceeded the value of the smallest unit of currency in that country.
- Philip Randall PhD