Expertise
Our various professions within the Group develop and produce the most suitable nutritional solutions tailored to the demands of humanitarian and health actors and the needs of targeted populations. Fundamental or applied nutritional research, agri-food and agro-industrial technologies, industrial processes, socio-anthropology and social sciences, legal and financial expertise, and social marketing are all areas of expertise pooled together to provide effective products.
At Nutriset Group, Research & Development revolves around 3 main missions:
Directly connected with field actors around the world and in partnership with major international research institutions, Nutriset Développement, the research entity of Nutriset Group, designs integrated solutions for all categories of vulnerable populations. These solutions are tailored to their specific needs and the constraints of their environments, embedded in their care ecosystems.
Initially, our specialized teams engage in collecting field data to deeply understand local eating habits, the social dimension of food specific to the studied populations, and to identify key actors, challenges, and constraints throughout the care chain.
Based on specifications established from the collected data, formulations and prototypes of nutritional solutions are then developed. These products meet all quality standards, demonstrating acceptability and effectiveness.
For over thirty years, Nutriset Group has been recognized by the international scientific community in the field of nutrition for its ability to develop products addressing specific nutritional issues. It is also known among its clients and partners for its expertise in industrializing these nutritional solutions on a large scale through its PlumpyField® network, making them quickly available and accessible in the field.
This “idea to offer” approach represents a central and constant financial and human investment for our companies, whose history is marked by major contributions in terms of innovations in the fight against malnutrition.
In 1993, Nutriset became the first company to offer, based on the formulations of nutritionists and the demands of humanitarians, therapeutic milks ready to dilute, F-100 and F-75, for the treatment of severe acute malnutrition.
In 1996, Nutriset innovated again by creating Plumpy’Nut®, the first Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF). Presented in a paste form requiring no preparation, this product significantly increased the number of children treated and their recovery rates with its new outpatient treatment method.
Since 2007, RUTFs have been recommended by a joint statement from the World Health Organization (WHO), Unicef, and the World Food Programme (WFP) in the context of this community-based management of severe acute malnutrition (CMAM).
Depuis 2006, Nutriset a mis à disposition des acteurs de santé de nouveaux produits visant à prévenir les différentes formes de malnutrition tels que Plumpy’Sup™, Plumpy’Doz™, Enov’Nutributter®+ et Plumpy’Mum™.
Ces produits appelés RUSF (Ready-to-Use Supplementary Food) ou SQ-LNS (Small Quantity Lipid-based Nutrient Supplements) compensent les carences en macro ou micronutriments des régimes alimentaires traditionnels des bénéficiaires.
Since 2006, Nutriset has made available to health actors new products aimed at preventing various forms of malnutrition, such as Plumpy’Sup™, Plumpy’Doz™, Enov’Nutributter®+, and Plumpy’Mum™.
These products, known as RUSF (Ready-to-Use Supplementary Food) or Small Quantity Lipid-based Nutrient Supplements (SQ-LNS), compensate for macro or micronutrient deficiencies in the traditional diets of beneficiaries.
Dans le Groupe Nutriset, la démarche scientifique de développement des produits s’appuie sur des partenariats avec des institutions de recherche reconnues mondialement, des organisations publiques ou privées et des acteurs de terrain du système des Nations unies ou des ONG. L’objectif est de définir les attributs nutritionnels nécessaires pour renforcer l’efficacité de nos produits et/ou adapter les stratégies de prise en charge, mieux comprendre les enjeux sociaux et les habitudes alimentaires locales, accompagner les politiques gouvernementales pour le traitement et la prévention de la malnutrition. L’objectif central de cette approche collaborative est de maximiser notre impact sur les bénéficiaires.
One of the flagship projects that the Nutriset Group has been committed to for many years is the International Lipid-Based Nutrient Supplements Project (iLiNS Project), which has enabled the development and testing of a new generation of preventive nutritional supplements. This project is a multi-actor international collaborative research effort built through a shared commitment to accelerate progress towards the prevention of malnutrition.
Thus, among many research projects, studies were conducted in Burkina Faso, Ghana, and Malawi among children and pregnant and lactating women, to cover the critical 1000-day period (from conception to the age of 2 years). Lipid-based nutritional supplements (SQ-LNS) were used to fortify the food of pregnant and lactating women as well as children (starting from 6 months).
The results of these studies, combined with other studies using products developed within the Nutriset Group, were integrated into various meta-analyses demonstrating the effectiveness of SQ-LNS in preventing different forms of malnutrition, including stunting, wasting, underweight, micronutrient deficiencies, anemia (Dewey et al. 2021) (Dewey et al. 2022), and reducing the risk of mortality (Stewart et al. 2020).
In 2021, The Lancet published its conclusions. The optimized formulas of LNS designed by Nutriset are recognized not only for reducing growth delays, the risks of wasting and underweight, iron deficiencies, and child mortality, thus protecting them from future risks of malnutrition, but also, when administered to pregnant and lactating women, they allow nutritional optimization of their pregnancy. A treatment is now possible throughout the thousand days covering the time of nine months of pregnancy and the first two years of the child’s life.
In 2023, the journal Nature Food strengthened the study with new results.
Ces dernières années, le groupe s’investit dans de nouveaux axes majeurs du traitement de la malnutrition.
Depuis 2020, nous développons des solutions nutritionnelles spécifiques et adaptées au terrain pour répondre aux besoins des personnes fragilisées par la maladie. Dernière innovation, NutriHope, vise à apporter un soutien nutritionnel aux personnes malades dans les pays en développement en apportant une solution concrète aux besoins accrus de ces patients et aux contraintes de terrain.
Prévenir et traiter la dénutrition en FranceRécemment, nous nous sommes engagés dans la lutte contre la dénutrition des personnes âgées en France et avons développé Appéti’mix™, une aide culinaire enrichie HP/HC. Des études en application réelle, et plus particulièrement celle menée avec le Centre Hospitalier de Mauriac entre 2021 et 2022, ont permis de collecter de nombreuses données de prise alimentaire chez cette population âgée et d’évaluer l’impact d’une nouvelle stratégie de prise en charge nutritionnelle.
Les résultats démontrent que l’utilisation d’Appéti’mix™ permet de couvrir les besoins protéiques et énergétiques des patients tout en divisant par deux les coûts associés pour l’établissement.
Dans un contexte où les matières premières sont devenues des objets de spéculation alors même que leur disponibilité est un enjeu vital pour des centaines de millions d’individus, nous explorons toutes les solutions nutritionnelles et alimentaires alternatives qui permettraient, demain, de les rendre accessibles au plus grand nombre dans les pays en développement. La croissance démographique de notre planète, ajoutée au dérèglement climatique, va rendre en effet difficile, sinon impossible, l’accès aux protéines animales pour tous.
Face à cette impasse, nous travaillons sur de nouvelles matières premières végétales locales plus accessibles et moins chères, aux origines diversifiées, et imaginons des méthodes pour les transformer de façon à améliorer leur valeur nutritionnelle. Ces recherches nous permettent de déployer des initiatives au sein du réseau PlumpyField® pour améliorer les filières agro-industrielles et valoriser les cultures locales.
Le Groupe Nutriset et le réseau PlumpyField soutiennent et investissent ainsi de nombreux projets.
En savoir plus