Havana, Dec 4 (Prensa Latina) The representative of the World Food Program (WFP), Étienne Labande, stated in Havana that despite the challenges in developing a national food fortification strategy, Cuba’s strength lies in its capacity.
The WFP representative in Cuba opened the sessions of the Innovation for the Sustainability of the Food Industry Symposium (SISIA 2025) with the conference “Innovation and alliances for scaling up sustainable solutions in the Cuban Food Industry: towards a national strategy for food fortification.”
Labande stated in his speech that since the end of 2023 the World Food Programme resumed facilitating and providing technical support to the Cuban Government in order to implement this initiative.
Among its priorities are the acquisition of viable options for mass-consumption foods, strengthening the technological capabilities of national industrial production, and supporting a regulatory framework that provides legal support for national food fortification, among other actions.
Key government sectors such as the Food Industry, Agriculture and Public Health are participating in the project.
Among the expected long-term results are the improvement of the food basket with the incorporation of fortified foods, the progress in the quality of diets and consumption practices of vulnerable groups through the use of fortified foods by social protection institutions.
In an interview with Prensa Latina, Labande emphasized that Cuba has a very strong scientific community, which possesses all the necessary knowledge, and also has an infrastructure that allows for food fortification and also possesses the technology, so it only needs to find a way to ensure that the process is sustainable over time.
Regarding recommendations for the Cuban State to achieve this goal, Labande pointed out the need to recover things that were done before in the Caribbean country, including some foods such as compotes for children, which were once no longer fortified, as well as wheat, which when it is ground to transform it into flour can also undergo the aforementioned process.
Similarly, there are specific nutritional supplement products for population categories such as children and the elderly that can be produced at the national level with those characteristics, added the WFP expert.
The SISIA 2025 symposium is dedicated to the centenary of the birth of the leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, to be celebrated in 2026, said the general director of the Institute of Research for the Food Industry (IIIA), engineer Jesús Rodríguez Mendoza, at the opening of the event.
The event, whose motto is “Sustainable Food Innovation”, is organized by the IIIA, a leading institution in innovation and development of the food industry in Cuba.
Among its achievements, the IIIA stands out in the development of foods for older adults and pregnant women, fruit and vegetable juices for children, reduced sugar products, and the provision of technical, teaching, and scientific services.
npg/abm
