Food Fortification or Enrichment
Prof. H. S. Shinde
K. K. Wagh College of Agricultural Biotechnology, Nashik. India

Enrichment
o Enrichment is defined as "synonymous with fortification and refers to the
addition of micronutrients to a food which are lost during processing."
o When foods are processed, they often lose some of the important nutrients
such as vitamins and minerals in the process.
o If the food is labeled “enriched” then the vitamins and/or minerals which
were lost have simply been added back to restore it to it’s original
nutritional value
o Many consumers think that “enriched” means that the food has extra
nutrients added to it which will make it more nutritious. That is not true. It
has simply been restored to it’s original state.

Food fortification
o Fortification refers to "the practice of deliberately increasing the content of
an essential micronutrients in food irrespective of whether the nutrients
were originally in the food before processing or not, so as to improve the
nutritional quality of the food
o It can be purely a commercial choice to provide extra nutrients in a food, or
sometimes it is a public health policy which aims to reduce numbers of
people with dietary deficiencies in a population.

Fortified
o When foods are labeled “fortified” with something, that means that an extra
amount has been added beyond the amount that was present before it was
processed
o Companies which make foods high in sugar, such as breakfast cereals will
label the package “fortified with vitamins and minerals”. Since the product
is high in sugar, they are trying to make it look as if it is healthy.

Types of Food Fortification
The 4 main methods of food fortification
o Biofortification (i.e. breeding crops to increase their nutritional value, which
includes both plant breeding and genetic engineering)
o Microbial biofortification and synthetic biology (i.e. addition of probiotic
bacteria)
o Commercial and industrial fortification (i.e. flour, rice, oils)
o Home fortification (e.g. vitamin D drops)

Examples of fortified foods
o Milk with Vitamin D
o Salt with Iodine
o Fruit juice with Calcium
o Water or toothpaste with fluoride
o Flour with Folic Acid
o Bread with Niacin

Others
Some other examples of fortified foods:
o Calcium is frequently added to fruit juices, carbonated beverages and rice
o White rice is frequently enriched to replace lost nutrients during milling
o "Golden rice" is a variety of rice which has been genetically modified to
produce beta carotene
o Amylase rich flour is utilized for food making to increase dietary
consumption.

Purpose of food fortification
o Improve nutritional quality of food
o Reduce nutritional disorders
o Fortification for body building
o Fortification for medical treatment