Mumbai, Dec 3 (PTI) There is a need to build public-private partnership to create awareness among consumers to make healthy and nutritious food choices, a top official of Dutch firm DSM said on Thursday.

DSM is a Dutch multinational corporation active in the fields of health, nutrition and materials.

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DSM Vice President, Global Malnutrition, Partnerships and Programmes, Fokko Wientjes, said, "The private sector could play a significant role in ensuring that more nutritious food is accessible to more people, more often and at affordable prices...

"Companies need to build partnerships with the government and NGOs to create awareness nutritious food. Going by the current scenario, good nutrition is the best immunity builder that we have right now to fight COVID-19 pandemic," Wientjes said in a discussion on 'the Role of the Private Sector in Addressing Nutrition' with former Britinia Managing Director Vinita Bali."

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Further, he stated that there is always discussion on agriculture and a separate discussion on food, and if both are brought together it will help in bringing economic stability to the farmers help build a high-quality food industry.

"If we tie these two together agriculture and food into one system, you get stability for farmers, because they know that they can supply into a food industry. It gives you a stable demand for agricultural inputs, and that stability, changes the lives of farmers, because they know that at the end of the season, they are able to sell. So, for me the big system change in agri-food could come by a better organized, high quality food industry," he added.

Wientjes said that malnutrition in India is a problem, but it is also a business opportunity.

"It is important that businesses get aspirational products to markets. The aim is to make nutrition aspirational, widely available and affordable not cheap," he said.

Partnerships between the private sector, development sector, public sector can play a significant role in combating the problem of malnutrition, he explained.

Nutrition is too vast and multidimensional for the government or private sector to address alone, Wientjes pointed out. 

Addressing the needs of the vulnerable population, he said healthy citizens make up a healthy and flourishing society.

Today, he said, the government in India is also looking at fortifying rice which is a primary staple in India.

"The government intends to provide fortified rice through the Public Distribution System. It is important to ensure that right standards are maintained and the best fortification products are used that blend well in rice, taste like rice and mix well in rice.

"If the fortified rice looks like exactly rice it will disappear in it and consumers won't know and children won't pick out, thereby improving nutrition levels. The government should also ensure that they give people the dignity of choice,” he added.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)