During an October 2023 trip to India, Jon Yaeger visited a private flour mill in Bengaluru (Bangalore) to try to get a miller's perspective on fortifying flour in his business with folic acid. Here is an excerpt of the visit:
"During my recent trip to India, Vankat Subramanian, a contract worker for Emory and an associate of IFF, arranged a visit to Vivaan Flour Mill in Bengaluru. We met with owner / partner Raghuram Sreerama and his son. The father gave a tour of the facility, which processed more than ten truckloads per day.
Raghuram and I discussed fortification of wheat with folic acid. He expressed concern that whether fortification was mandatory or voluntary, there might be quality control problems – there would probably be little or no testing of the final product unless it was government-mandated with penalties for non-compliance. He said that he could not sell a fortified product for any more money because consumers didn’t care. Raghuram noted that concern for quality seems to be increasing, but nonetheless purchase decisions are primarily made on a staple product like this based upon price alone.
Conclusions: 1) there is little – if any – incentive for millers to provide voluntary folic acid fortification; 2) consumers weren't likely to pay more for a fortified product, and 3) fortification would have to be made mandatory, with QC checks and penalties for non-compliance, for it to work in the India's state of Karnataka."
"During my recent trip to India, Vankat Subramanian, a contract worker for Emory and an associate of IFF, arranged a visit to Vivaan Flour Mill in Bengaluru. We met with owner / partner Raghuram Sreerama and his son. The father gave a tour of the facility, which processed more than ten truckloads per day.
Raghuram and I discussed fortification of wheat with folic acid. He expressed concern that whether fortification was mandatory or voluntary, there might be quality control problems – there would probably be little or no testing of the final product unless it was government-mandated with penalties for non-compliance. He said that he could not sell a fortified product for any more money because consumers didn’t care. Raghuram noted that concern for quality seems to be increasing, but nonetheless purchase decisions are primarily made on a staple product like this based upon price alone.
Conclusions: 1) there is little – if any – incentive for millers to provide voluntary folic acid fortification; 2) consumers weren't likely to pay more for a fortified product, and 3) fortification would have to be made mandatory, with QC checks and penalties for non-compliance, for it to work in the India's state of Karnataka."