Increased awareness and use of fortified food key to tackling micronutrient deficiencies: experts

At a media roundtable convened by the Tamil Nadu Food Safety and Drug Administration Department in Chennai on Thursday (September 4, 2025), experts highlighted the growing need to tackle ‘hidden hunger’ or micronutrient deficiencies in the population and stressed the need for greater awareness, and usage of food fortification and other nutrition programmes being run by the government, as well as the need to improve dietary diversity.

V.K. Pancham, regional director, Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), set the context by outlining how traditional policies focused on food security, but this was not a guarantee of good health, and the real challenge now, he said, was nutritional security. The cornerstone of FSSAI’s initiatives to promoting safe, nutritious, and sustainable diets lay in food fortification, he said, with the fortification of rice, wheat, flour, salt, and edible oil in order to tackle micronutrient deficiencies. He also highlighted the need for a multi-pronged approach involving all stakeholders to combat this challenge.

Tamil Nadu Health Secretary P. Senthil Kumar said that micronutrient deficiencies were high in the population: with food being processed and ultra-processed, people are losing out on micronutrients in the food, making it essential to supplement it through fortification.