Malawi: Cheaper way to feed hungry children

JOHANNESBURG, 24 February 2009 (IRIN) - The peanutty paste rushes out of the steel pipes into the plastic bottles placed in position by a worker at the Project Peanut Butter factory in Blantyre, Malawi's commercial capital. The red label on the bottle reads Plumpy'nut Chiponde, the Malawian name for the ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF) that has revolutionized the treatment of chronically malnourished children.

Chiponde is like crunchy peanut butter, but is thicker and contains sugar, peanut paste, oil, minerals and vitamins; milk powder, a critical ingredient providing animal protein, makes up 25 percent, accounts for more than 50 percent of the cost, and adds a strong milky flavour. Incidentally, RUTF was developed in Malawi.

Project Peanut Butter, a non-profit therapeutic feeding programme in Malawi, has begun clinical trials to test the efficacy of substitute ingredients to help bring production costs down.

The programme was founded by Mark Manary, a professor of paediatric medicine at Washington University School of Medicine and a paediatrician at St Louis Children's Hospital in Missouri, US, who was the first to prove that RUTF was effective.

The food and fuel price crisis in 2008 pushed the costs of ingredients up, adding impetus to the study. "Two years ago milk was much more expensive than other ingredients," said Manary.

"Then, in 2008, all food prices rose, so oil and peanuts increased their fraction of the cost. I do not really expect food prices to go down, so the price of RUTF will be what it is - about US$4 to $5 per kilogram. Of course, if costs to produce RUTF fall, RUTF is more accessible."

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