Product Quality Testing
The second component of the MFI involves periodic independent testing of participating companies’ products, assessing their performance against the required compliance range. MFI samples are collected from points of sale, i.e., at markets and supermarkets.
Salt, sugar. and edible oils only require one micronutrient fortification compound each. Flour requires nine compounds, but the MFI protocols currently test three of these micronutrients—Vitamin A, Vitamin B3, and iron, chosen because of their importance—to serve as anchor nutrients and a proxy for performance against all nine fortification standards for flour.
The MFI product testing scoring system currently gives full marks for compliance at 80% of the statutory minimum threshold [1]. This is based on our research showing that many brands have typically not reached this lower threshold. The aim is to encourage brands to build towards full statutory compliance by raising the MFI thresholds as performance improves over time.
There are detailed MFI protocols for the identification, collection, storage, dispatch, and recording of samples and results.
[1] This is different for flour with three different micronutrient compounds being tested. All three are expected to attain the 80% threshold for the full product testing score to be awarded.
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