I was really intrigued by Liyan's presentation last week on ready-to-use therapeutic food for the treatment of severe childhood malnutrition. CNN recently published an interesting article on Nutriset, the company that manufactures only treatments for malnutrition. The article reported that Nutriset made $25 million in 2006, mostly from buyers like Unicef. There is a huge market for treating malnutrition, but I guess this shouldn't be surprising, considering that there were 67 million people in 2002 experiencing severe food shortages and thus requiring international food aid.
The good thing is that they put 80% of the profits back into developing more products, and they are working on African franchises (for-profit) that will produce Plumpy'nut locally.
The Project Peanut Butter website also has a lot of information regarding this topic. The organization was formed by Dr. Mark Manary, the author of Liyan's article. What a small world! Or not..
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8 comments:
Mana thanks for your nice comment! Yes the Nutriest Company started out by producing Zinc pill for Diaries prevention in poor area. The project was funded by Bill and Melinda Gate foundation. Then Nutriset came out with plumpy nut product! Its is small world... I glad that you like it! :)
What an amazing project! What should be the next stage after treating malnutrition? We already had a bit of a discussion that it's "therapeutic food" for a reason, implying somewhat of a temporary remission. There weren't specifics on the economic infusion, if any, as a result of the project so I'm curious as to how large of an economic impact manufacturing the peanut butter can make and if this could ensure sustainability. As Sachs might say, it's a down payment on ending malnutrition.
We talk a lot in this class about what we can do to make a difference. Nutriset and Plumpy'nut is a great example of how someone can have an idea, go forward with it, and make a positive impact on global health. It's sustainable too -- OH YEAH !
Thanks for add this information. It seam that its a great project!
M
Mana, thanks for the post. Its good to hear that corporations that are getting a lot of money for their project, are pouring it back in, which in turn helps benefits the people.
hey mana, at first i thought this project would run into the same old problems with getting things done as other projects have, but it's great to know that the developers are finding ways to produce it in the countries where it's needed & to make it a sustainable project...i think that represents a true step forward.
The names of these projects are so catchy and they make me hungry. I like that they have such positive connotations.
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