A new report on conflict of interest and corporate influence behind India's fortification policies focuses on an entity named the Food Fortification Resource Center (FFRC), which is an industry linked body, and is located within the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), which is India’s food safety regulator. The report reveals how FFRC’s direct and indirect members stand to financially gain from an expansion in food fortification programs in India. Given the profit motive that exists, the report questions the location of FFRC within the FSSAI, as the latter is a statutory regulatory body whose aim is to protect citizen health, and which is expected to function in an independent fashion. As the report states, “of greatest concern to this report, is why such actors have a seat inside India’s regulatory body, the FSSAI. Moreover, such actors are co-implementing fortification programs, providing funding, advisory services, selling proprietary technologies in state programs, and conducting the government’s so-called ‘independent’ evaluation studies. We make the case that the presence of the FFRC inside the FSSAI deserves further scrutiny and intervention to avoid conflict of interest.”
link to report here
Image from the report on the web of connections between corporate actors and the FFRC
