Fueling the Business of Nutrition: What Will It Take to Attract More Commercial Investment into Nutritious Food Value Chains?

Abstract

One in every three people around the world today is malnourished, imposing a heavy burden on those individuals, their families, and their societies. This includes undernutrition as well as overweight and obesity, driven by factors including poverty, urbanization, demographic change, environmental pressure, and globalization. Altogether, malnutrition costs the global economy an estimated $3.5 trillion a year.' While malnutrition was once narrowly framed as a public health problem, more attention is now being paid to influencing food systems and their role in what consumers eat, as a key part of the solution.? In this regard, a number of factors make it hard for consumers to eat sufficient quantities of diverse, nutritious foods.