dsm-firmenich: Vitamin A for food fortification

Vitamin A deficiency can cause blindness, impaired growth and severe infectious diseases, with the greatest harm to pregnant women and children.

Since 2025, we have provided dsm-firmenich with a volume guarantee to support stable pricing and sustainable supply of vitamin A for edible oil millers, ensuring greater access to fortified cooking oil.

The challenge

Public health

Vitamin A deficiency affects approximately 500 million people globally, mainly in Africa and Asia. It is particularly prevalent in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) due to food insecurity and limited dietary diversity.

A deficiency in vitamin A has particularly adverse consequences for women of reproductive age and children, leading to blindness, impaired growth, and increased severity of infectious diseases.

In children, vitamin A deficiency significantly increases the risk of illness and death from common infections such as diarrhoea and measles. It is also the leading preventable cause of blindness. In women of reproductive age, vitamin A deficiency increases the risk of maternal night blindness, infection, and other adverse outcomes during pregnancy and lactation.

Market situation

The vitamin A market frequently sees severe price volatility and supply insecurity due to market disruptions.

Although fortification with vitamin A is mandatory in many countries, edible oil millers often face significant challenges to fortify their products when the price of vitamin A increases or supplies become scarce. This makes it difficult for millers to plan ahead, procure consistently, and fortify oil in adequate volumes.

This first-of-its-kind partnership supports predictable vitamin A prices in an important market where fortified food is a big contributor to ensuring people benefit from vitamin A.

Impact to date

By the end of 2025:

3.8m

additional children with vitamin A deficiency reached

$1.39m

saved for edible oil millers

The product

Vitamin A is essential for the functioning of the immune system and healthy growth of children. People can become deficient in the vitamin due to a limited diet.

Food fortification involves adding safe levels of micronutrients such as vitamin A to commonly consumed foods such as cooking oil, to increase their nutrient content. Edible oil millers blend vitamin A into the oil during production. Consumers benefit from the fortified oil in their daily cooking.

The fortification of edible oil with vitamin A is mandated in many LMICs. Supporting edible oil millers to access vitamin A at affordable, predictable prices can support compliance efforts.

The partnership

MedAccess has partnered with dsm-firmenich to provide stable pricing and sustainable supply of vitamin A, ensuring a more affordable and transparent price for edible oil millers in LMICs. This initiative will significantly increase the amount of fortified oil available, therefore improving public health outcomes.

dsm-firmenich will not exceed ceiling prices of $59 per kg (ex-works) for vitamin A and $43.30 per kg (ex-works) for a vitamin A and D3 blend when sold to edible oil millers for fortification in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).

To enable dsm-firmenich to offer these ceiling prices, MedAccess has provided a volume guarantee, covering any shortfall in agreed sales.

Impact projections

Our guarantee is contributing to stabilised prices and sustained supply of vitamin A, to support the continued fortification of edible oil.

By stabilising prices, this guarantee will address historical price volatility, improving visibility and supply security for edible oil millers, and support longer-term planning and forecasting to ensure adequate fortification.

Using evidence from supplementation trials to approximate the potential benefits of fortification, we project that improved access to oil fortified with vitamin A can contribute to:

1.21 million cases of vitamin A deficiency addressed in children under five
1.14 million cases of anaemia addressed in children under five.

How we calculate the impact of this agreement

Lives changed

Evidence for the benefits of food fortification is limited due to the complexities of controlled nutrition monitoring. Vitamin A supplementation clinical trials were used as a proxy to estimate the benefit of daily, continued consumption of fortified oil. Estimates for cases of vitamin A deficiency addressed were based on a meta-analysis by Imdad et al.

Money saved

Impact is based on comparing the negotiated price to the historical median market price.

Markets shaped

We work with partners, including donors and procurers to track changes in health markets where our investments are supporting access to products. We monitor for changes to policy, procurement practices and supplier movement, all of which affect markets and contribute to the long-term sustainability of impact.