Experts are considering seasoning cubes due to their widespread use in Nigerian households.
There is a renewed push by nutrition and health experts to make the fortification of seasoning cubes mandatory to tackle Nigeria’s micronutrient deficiencies.
In 2024, Nigeria introduced voluntary standards for bouillon fortification, allowing manufacturers to add vitamin B9, vitamin B12, iron, zinc, and iodine.
Experts now want the government to make the standards mandatory, arguing that voluntary adoption may not provide the population-wide coverage needed.
Why seasoning cubes, and why now? PREMIUM TIMES examines the evidence behind the renewed call for mandatory fortification.
Experts are considering seasoning cubes due to their widespread use in Nigerian households.
A 2024 study published in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences found that more than 99 per cent of Nigerian households consumed bouillon, compared with less than 20 per cent of national consumption of branded wheat flour and less than one per cent of the national consumption of branded maize flour.
The study found that this widespread consumption could make bouillon an effective vehicle for reaching households that may not be reached as well by some other fortified foods.
It also found differences in the consumption of other food vehicles across income groups and regions. This is significant because Nigeria already has fortification programmes covering foods such as flour and refined oil, but these foods do not reach all households equally.
The idea of using bouillon this way is not entirely new in Nigeria either. In its 2021 National Guidelines for the Prevention and Control of Micronutrient Deficiencies, the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare identified bouillon cubes as a potential vehicle for voluntary micronutrient fortification. It called for further research into their use, including the feasibility of adding vitamin B9 and iron.
Three years later, Nigeria introduced voluntary standards allowing manufacturers to fortify bouillon cubes with vitamin B9, vitamin B12, iron, zinc, and iodine.
A separate report by BioAnalyst estimated that more than 100 million bouillon cubes are sold daily in Nigeria, citing studies on their widespread consumption across West Africa.
Therefore, the argument is that the reach of seasoning cubes could allow essential nutrients to reach households that existing fortification programmes may miss.
Olusola Malomo, assistant director of dietetics at the Lagos State Health Service Commission, told PREMIUM TIMES that seasoning cubes could provide a way of reaching people across income groups “without requiring them to change their eating habits.”
“They provide an opportunity to reach women before pregnancy, when adequate folate is most important for preventing neural tube defects,” Mr Malomo added.
Odunayo Babatunde, a maternal and child health nutritionist, estimated that about 95 per cent of Nigerians use seasoning cubes, including poorer households, which may have less access to other nutrient-rich foods.
Mrs Babatunde also said vitamins B9 and B12 can be incorporated into dry seasoning cubes without changing their colour, taste or shelf life.
“If it is made mandatory, it guarantees that even the poorest women can easily access vitamin B9/12 by just having regular meals at home,” she added.
The concern is that existing food-fortification programmes are not enough to eliminate micronutrient gaps.
The Nigeria-specific study found that, even after accounting for existing fortification programmes, vitamin B12 inadequacy affected 42 per cent of women of reproductive age and 39 per cent of children aged six to 59 months.
The researchers estimated vitamin B12 inadequacy at 75 per cent among women and 68 per cent among children in the poorest socioeconomic group. They also found higher levels of inadequacy among rural populations and modelled how adding nutrients to bouillon could help close these gaps.
They concluded that bouillon fortification could substantially reduce inadequacies in several micronutrients and improve equity between poorer and wealthier households and between rural and urban populations.
Vitamin B9 is also in the spotlight because of its role in early pregnancy.
Neural tube defects, including spina bifida and anencephaly, develop during the first weeks of pregnancy, often before a woman knows she is pregnant. Adequate vitamin B9 intake before conception and during early pregnancy can substantially reduce the risk.
Mrs Babatunde told PREMIUM TIMES that vitamin B9 is particularly important during the first 28 days of pregnancy because of its role in cell division and neural tube development.
“Currently, over 80 per cent of pregnant women and more than 90 per cent of women of childbearing age in Nigeria are vitamin B9 deficient,” she said.
As a result, experts see population-wide food fortification as a possible complement to supplementation.
A Lagos-based neurosurgeon, Oluwafemi Owagbemi, who has treated patients with spina bifida, made a similar argument in an opinion piece published by TheCable.
Mr Owagbemi wrote that knowledge of folate deficiency alone was not enough when women could not consistently access nutrient-rich diets. For him, food fortification provides a way of delivering nutrients through foods people already consume.
Concerned parties have estimated that Nigeria could record nearly 11,000 babies with neural tube defects annually, based on an estimated rate of 14.2 cases per 10,000 live births and about 7.5 million births a year.
