Food brand Knorr recently launched a campaign to help deal with malnutrition in the country. The event was held at Mercato Centrale in Bonifacio Global City.
Dubbed “Lutong Nanay Nutrition Program,” the campaign strongly believes that a sustainable way to alleviate malnutrition is through a mother’s nutritious home cooking.
The project is a collaboration with a number of government and nongovernment organizations, including the World Food Programme, Kabisig ng Lahi, and Food Nutrition Research Institute of the Department of Science and Technology’s (FNRI-DOST).
According to FNRI-DOST, there are at least 5 million malnourished children in the Philippines. While poverty has been identified as the main cause, the lack of adequate knowledge on nutrition among Filipinos was also a major factor that compounds the problem.
Knorr stresses that malnutrition can be addressed when adequate education is provided to the biggest influence in every child’s nutrition—
mothers.
“When the target in battling malnutrition is done by just feeding, there is hardly any statistical difference made in the child’s overall health,” says Lilibeth Dasco, FNRI senior research specialist.
The new focus of the program should be mothers and future mothers, she notes.
Unilever marketing director for food Oliver Sicam says the company’s food programs have been integrated into one banner “to represent what Knorr really stands for—that mom’s cooking is really important.”
Which is what Lutong Nanay is all about.
Feed, teach, make it last
The program aims to make nutritious meals accessible and sustainable for every child by encouraging the mother to follow a three-step model: Feed, Teach and Make It Last.
Feed pertains to supporting wide-scale, school and community feeding programs through a partnership with the World Food Programme and Kabisig ng Kalahi.
Teach provides recipe booklets and seminars to key barangay and communities to teach mothers affordable and nutritious dishes that they can prepare at home. This leg of the program also teaches the value of nutrition and saving money.
Make it Last helps mothers set up their own businesses through a livelihood development module.
“We continued with our past feeding programs but added teaching to our corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities,” says Sicam. “We found that we can make a bigger difference by expanding and strengthening the education aspects of our program.”
Knorr has so far extended assistance to over 600,000 malnourished children throughout the country. With the help of the World Food Programme, Knorr has even reached out to conflict-stricken areas in Mindanao.
“Knorr can use its expertise as one of the world’s largest brands to help unlock more flavor and goodness from everyday food via nutritious cooking,” says Benjie Yap, Unilever vice president for food and homecare. “In the Philippines, we know that the Lutong Nanay Program can be a powerful tool in fighting one of the most pressing issues in our country.”
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