Working with local women in rural Tanzania, this project seeks to establish community level production of quality, safer, and low cost nutrient rich semi processed complementary foods for children 6-24 months of age. We shall use value added approaches such as farming and processing as well as household level approaches using locally available products that fit traditional recipes for complementary feeding practices in this community. We aim to provide affordable, high quality nutrient rich and culturally acceptable complementary foods, scaled up to eliminate child malnutrition and promote health based on the local context. This project adds efforts to the critical 1000 day window necessary for optimal child thriving.
It is globally known that processed complementary foods that are available in the markets are not accessible to a majority of children in developing countries who need them. This is in part due to costs but also because of distance from where local recipes and foods are located. Local practices have thus been widely established, using locally available foods regardless of their nutrition value. We shall work with women, train them, and enable them to produce nutrient rich foods. We shall teach them entrepreneurial skills to support local production of standardized semi processed complimentary food using local produce and local recipes. Contents shall be standardized according to locally derived nutrition profiles. Safer small scale production models will be developed to ensure safety practices from the farms to processing to ensure safe and nutrient rich products reach households…