Micronutrient‐fortified bouillon as a strategy to improve the micronutrient adequacy of diets in Burkina Faso

Abstract

AbstractBouillon is a promising candidate for fortification to complement existing large‐scale food fortification (LSFF) programs. We used household dietary data from Burkina Faso to model potential contributions of bouillon fortified with vitamin A (40–250 μg/g bouillon), folic acid (20–120 μg/g), vitamin B12 (0.2–2 μg/g), iron (0.6–5 mg/g), and zinc (0.6–5 mg/g) for meeting micronutrient requirements of women of reproductive age (15–49 years; WRA) and children (6–59 months). Most households (82%) reported bouillon consumption, with higher proportions of resource‐constrained (84–88%) and rural households (88%) consuming bouillon. Accounting for the contributions of existing LSFF, household diets were inadequate to meet the micronutrient requirements of many WRA and children, exceeding 90% and 60% inadequacy for vitamins A and B12, respectively. Modeling results showed bouillon fortification could reduce inadequacy by up to ∼30 percentage points (pp) for vitamin A, ∼26 pp for folate among WRA (∼11 pp among children), ∼38 pp for vitamin B12, and 11–13 pp for zinc, with comparable reductions across socioeconomic strata and urban and rural residence. Predicted reductions in iron inadequacy were <3 pp. These results suggest dietary micronutrient inadequacies are a concern in Burkina Faso, and fortified bouillon can make substantial contributions to reducing micronutrient inadequacies, including among resource‐constrained and rural populations.