Hidden Hunger: Addressing the Global Micronutrient Deficiency

By Olivia Sakai

Hidden hunger occurs when people consume enough calories but lack essential vitamins and minerals. Learn how TechnoServe is addressing hidden hunger through food fortification.

What is Hidden Hunger and Why is it Invisible?

Approximately 3 billion people worldwide suffer from hidden hunger. The problem hits hardest in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, East Asia, and the Asia-Pacific regions, where over 1 billion women and children face micronutrient deficiencies.

Defining the Meaning of Hidden Hunger

Hidden hunger occurs when people get enough food to meet their caloric needs but still lack crucial micronutrients. The most common deficiencies involve iron, vitamin A, and iodine. The condition is labeled “hidden” because it doesn’t present the obvious physical signs we associate with acute hunger.

The root cause of hidden hunger often lies in nutrient-poor diets. Food crops like rice, wheat, and maize provide the bulk of calories for much of the world’s population, especially in lower-income countries. When dominating diets, these crops fill stomachs but fall short of providing the vitamins and minerals the human body needs to function properly. The consequences extend far beyond individual health. It also reduces cognitive development and overall productivity, and limits economic prosperity across entire communities.

Hidden Hunger vs. Calorie Deficiency

Malnutrition takes several forms. Undernutrition, which includes wasting, stunting, and being underweight, typically stems from not getting enough calories. Micronutrient-related malnutrition encompasses both deficiencies and excesses of vitamins and minerals. Finally, there are the problems of overweight, obesity, and diet-related noncommunicable diseases.

This article focuses specifically on micronutrient deficiencies. Despite being less visible than other forms of malnutrition, micronutrient deficiencies are among the most widespread types of malnutrition globally.

People experiencing poverty face higher risks of developing various forms of malnutrition. Malnutrition drives up healthcare costs, hampers cognitive development and productivity, and slows economic growth, which perpetuates the cycle of poverty and poor health.

The Impact: Why Hidden Hunger in Children is a Global Emergency

Women and children need more nutrients than other population groups, making them particularly vulnerable to micronutrient deficiencies. The specific deficiencies carry distinct dangers.

Impact on Cognitive Development and Growth

• Iodine deficiency can cause brain damage in newborns, reduce mental capacity, and lead to goiter. 
• Iron deficiency brings anemia, impaired motor and cognitive development, premature births, and low birthweight. 
• When children lack vitamin A, they risk visual impairment or blindness, as well as severe illness from common infections. 
• Zinc deficiency weakens the immune system and increases the frequency of infections.
• Folate (B9) deficiency contributes to anemia and leads to devastating neural tube defects.

A 2022 study found that globally, more than half of preschool-aged children and two-thirds of non-pregnant women of reproductive age have micronutrient deficiencies. Children who experience these deficiencies face permanent learning challenges. Their diminished educational outcomes translate directly into reduced earning potential later in life, trapping them and often their own children in ongoing poverty. Each year, the global economy loses $1 trillion due to decreased productivity associated with undernutrition and micronutrient deficiencies. 

Strategies for Addressing and Preventing Hidden Hunger

Several approaches exist to combat hidden hunger. Food fortification adds micronutrients to commonly eaten foods. Biofortification increases nutrient levels in crops through breeding or agricultural techniques. Dietary diversification encourages people to eat a wider variety of micronutrient-rich foods, including fruits, vegetables, lean meats, dairy, and whole grains. Targeted supplementation provides direct, high-dose vitamin and mineral supplementation to high-risk populations such as pregnant people, children under 5, and those with severe deficiencies.

No single strategy will adequately address the scope and severity of hidden hunger. These different approaches need to work together to create meaningful change.

The Role of Food Fortification and Biofortification

TechnoServe focuses primarily on food fortification as a tool for creating large-scale, cost-effective change. Food fortification enriches staple foods with essential micronutrients. By increasing the nutrient density of foods people already eat regularly, fortification has become a critical global approach to improving population-wide nutrition and health.

Food Fortification: A Cost-Effective Solution

In sub-Saharan Africa, millions of people experience hidden hunger. Combating malnutrition through food fortification is essential for long-term development in these nations. While many countries across the region mandate fortification, implementation remains a significant challenge. 

Inadequate compliance remains a persistent problem. Regulatory monitoring systems frequently lack the resources or effectiveness needed to ensure a level playing field. This allows some processors to absorb and pass on the marginal costs of fortification and compliance without commercial disadvantage, while others cut corners without consequence.

Examples from TechnoServe’s Work Supporting Food Processors

One of the ways that TechnoServe works to transform local food systems is through our work with food processors. Local food systems are critical to our vision of a sustainable world where all people in low-income countries have an opportunity to prosper. Most food consumed globally moves through markets, making them central to any systemic change. Transforming food systems requires engaging agricultural and food businesses of all types and building trust between the private sector, government, civil society, and consumers.

Food processors that mill grain, refine cooking oil, turn milk into safe dairy products, and turn flour into bread, among other activities, are critical to local food systems. They sit in the middle of the value chain and often: 

• provide stable markets for smallholder farmers
• invest in training and services for their suppliers
• create safe, nutritious, and affordable foods for base-of-the-pyramid consumers and 
• driver job creation, particularly for women and youth.

TechnoServe has been supporting food processors to scale up food fortification since 2016 through programs such as Strengthening African Processors of Fortified Foods (SAPFF), Advancing Food Fortification Opportunities to Reinforce Diets (AFFORD), and Inspiring Good Nutrition Initiatives Through Enterprise (IGNITE). These efforts have catalysed a global coalition of millers and input and equipment suppliers to pursue excellence in food fortification through Millers for Nutrition. 

With support from the Gates Foundation, Millers for Nutrition aims to reach 1 billion people with adequately fortified flour, rice, and edible oil by helping milling businesses improve fortification practices, thereby enhancing the nutritional quality of the staple foods they produce for local populations.

Beyond technical assistance, TechnoServe has introduced an industry-led, self-regulatory mechanism through the Micronutrient Fortification Index (MFI) in Nigeria and the Kenya Millers Fortification Index (KMFI) in Kenya. These platforms create structured transparency around fortification performance and position healthy competition as a driver of improvement. By publicly recognizing brands that meet stronger quality and fortification standards, the indices incentivize companies to strengthen internal controls, product testing, and governance systems.

Rather than relying solely on external enforcement, this model introduces positive peer pressure within the industry. Companies are motivated to improve not only to remain compliant but also to protect their reputation, differentiate their products, and signal credibility to regulators, partners, and consumers. In doing so, the Index becomes a tool for behavioral change, shifting fortification from a regulatory checkbox to a visible marker of quality and accountability.

Biofortification: Strengthening Nutrition at the Source

Beyond food fortification, another strategy for addressing hidden hunger is biofortification. Biofortification increases the levels of essential vitamins and minerals in staple crops themselves. This can be accomplished through various techniques, including selective breeding and the use of fertilizers and other inputs to boost nutrient uptake in crops. Agronomic options produce results more quickly, but genetic changes offer greater sustainability over the long term. This strategy tackles nutritional gaps right at the source, creating a sustainable, food-based solution to hunger.

Addressing Hidden Hunger at Scale

Hidden hunger creates a crisis that undermines human potential on a massive scale, even as it remains largely invisible to those not directly experiencing it. The consequences play out in diminished learning capacity for children, heightened health risks for women, and entire communities struggling under the economic burden of preventable illness and reduced productivity. 

Yet the scale of the challenge also reveals the scale of opportunity, because approaches such as food fortification and biofortification offer proven, cost-effective pathways to reach millions of people with essential nutrients through the staple foods they already consume every day.

TechnoServe’s market-based approach demonstrates that sustainable solutions require technical expertise, strong partnerships between processors and regulators, and consistent support to help food companies navigate the real challenges of compliance. Programs like SAPFF, AFFORD, and IGNITE show what is possible when the private sector, governments, and development organizations align their efforts to improve nutrition at scale.