THE TRAINING PROJECT FOR THE MILLS IN SHAANXI AND GANSU PROVINCE

January 14, 2008

In order to create a general awareness about fortified flour in the mind of mills in Shaanxi and Gansu province, and make them understand the production technic, effect, international development, and the market outlook of fortified flour, the flour fortification promotion group of PNDC launched a training project for the mills in Shaanxi and Gansu provinces.

       The date of the training project was arranged during December 15 – 22 2007. The group member includes the executive director of the flour fortification group Dr. Wang Ping, and Mr. Wang Wei from PNDC, Professor Zhang Yuanpei, the fortified flour expert from Beijing SGA, Mr. Yu Junbo, the general secretary from CCOA. Liu Lulin from China CDC, department of Food Safety, Mrs. Cheng Ying and Gao Xi, premix experts from DSM, and other relative group members.

       The training project for the mills in Gansu province was arranged in the SanFu hotel in Jingtai county between December 16-18^th 2007. The SanFu food and oil company in the Jingtai county provided positive support to the project. Ministers from Jingtai government SGA, and journalist from local medias also participated and supported the opening ceremony of the training project. There were 13 mills with 50 people get involved into the training project. The project group provided several lessons to participants which included: history of fortified flour, nutrition situation of China and Shaanxi and Gansu province, surveying result of the flour market, awareness of fortified flour by public, equipment and production technic of fortified flour, the permission procedure for mills, quality supervision system for fortified flour, marketing strategies for fortified flour, and method of fortified flour examination. At the same time, the project organized participants to visit the SanFu Food and Oil Company, which has the ability to produce fortified flour, so that all participants could get direct feeling about the procedure of producing fortified flour.

       The training project for the mills in Shaanxi province was arranged in the TangHua Hotel in XiAn city between December 21-22, 2007. There were more than 30 mills with 90 people participate in to the training project. In addition, participants also included principals and technical experts of mills, teachers and students from food schools in Shaanxi province, and students from relative organizations of food industry. Furthermore, it is the largest professional training project for fortified flour in Shaanxi province. Moreover, experts of the project group successfully collected feedbacks from mills, interactively motivated each others with mills, answered all kinds of questions from participants. According to the feedback that the project group collected from participants, we get more information acceptance rate of fortified flour by mills, and the production and sales situation of mills.

       According to the survey that has been done before the training project, we found that most of mills in Shaanxi and Gansu provinces don not have enough knowledge about fortified flour, and their knowledge about fortified flour production is also low. Furthermore, mills are worrying about the market of fortified flour; even most of them agreed that fortified flour is the general developing trend of flour market, and they are still observing the market of fortified flour. Moreover, mills hope that government could direct the consumption of fortified flour, and they also hope that flour fortification could be mandatorily implemented. In addition, mills are also concerning about the quality and stability of fortified flour after micronutrients are added in. Additionally, local residents prefer white colored flour, so specialized white colored additive will be added into fortified flour. Therefore, mills are also concerning about possible conflict between micronutrient and specialized white colored additive. Finally, there are several famous mills in Shaanxi province such as LaoNIu mill, XiRui mill, and QunZhong Mill who have already got the certificate of producing fortified flour from the certification office of PNDC. They are the examples which could positively promote fortified flour.

       After the training project, mills get more systematic knowledge about the technic, production and sale of fortified flour. Most mills have positive observation about the trend of the fortified flour. They also think that fortified flour is valuable to promote, and most of them has expressed that they want to get more information about fortified flour. After the training project, Several mills applied certificate of producing fortified flour from the certification office of PNDC which include: ShanFu Mill Ltd, XiAn XinHua Mill Ltd, QinLaoDa Mill Ltd in Shaanxi province, and JiuQuan Shuangxi Mill Ltd.

       The training project is a important part of the fortified flour promotion program in Shaanxi and Gansu province. It set a good example of promoting fortified flour which could be applied in the whole nation later on. Furthermore, the training project increased awareness of fortified flour by mills, and it also pushed the development of fortified flour in western regions of China. Finally, we recommend that we could launch more training projects in the future. At the same time, we should keep in touch with the mills who has participated the training project, and maximize the impact of the training project.

Reference:

Center for Public Nutrition and Development