Fortification of Vegetable oil and Sugar with Vitamin A in Uganda

Technical Committee, with largely the same composition, revised the food fortification
standards to align them with the ECSA food fortification guidelines. The current official
UNBS regulations are noted in Table 3.1.
Table 3.1: The UNBS Revised Fortification Regulations
Uganda Standards (US), Third Edition 2006-011-14
Document Number
US 500:2003
US 508:2003
US 510:2006
US 203:2006
US 509:2006
US 511:2006
US 561:2006
US 566:2006
Document Title
Regulations for nutrition labeling of foods
Regulation for nutrition and health claims on foods
Specification for fortified sugar
Edible salts - Specifications
Fortified milled maize products - Specifications
Fortified fats and oils – Specification
Fortified wheat flour
Use of nutrition claims – Requirements
c. Inspection, Monitoring, and Quality Control: Activities and Costs
The UNBS’s recurrent costs for fortification relate to factory and import inspections.
1) Factory Inspection
The UNBS inspects factories by visiting and reviewing the plants technically—both and
their internal physical structure and their internal systems of quality control and quality
assurance. For certification, plants must comply with Good Manufacturing Practices
(GMP)—a set of regulations, that requires food manufacturers, processors, and packagers
to ensure that their products are safe, pure, and high quality. GMP regulations require a
quality manufacturing approach to minimize or eliminate instances of contamination and
other errors that might put consumers at risk of purchasing ineffective or dangerous
products. GMP raise the generally accepted industry standards in Uganda and are guided
by international practices.
The UNBS’s fortification-related responsibilities are incremental additions to their food
hygiene and safety responsibilities. Five UNBS inspectors visit and inspect all food
factories in Uganda, not just those fortifying. While standards call for two or three visits
per year, UNBS acknowledges that realistically, at this moment, it can reach each factory
once a year.
Table 3.2 shows the time and material inputs and estimated costs of a factory visit and
the estimated cost of a single factory inspection. If each fortifying factory (assuming 3
of oil and 3 of sugar) is inspected just once a year, it will cost 3.3 million UGX
(US$1,985) for the 6 visits and 9 days of UNBS inspector time (6% time). Adhering to
UNBS standards would require 18 factory visits per year, cost 9.9 million UGS
(US$5,955) and require 20 percent time of a full-time equivalent inspector.
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