MANILA, PHILIPPINES—A recent rapid assessment survey conducted by the Food and Nutrition Research Institute (DOST-FNRI) in select areas revealed that 6 out of 10 households report “moderate to severe” food insecurity. Among those surveyed, households with children (74.7%) and pregnant women (80.8%) report experiencing the highest level of insecurity. The majority of these children (88.6%) do not receive supplementary feeding, and almost 1 in 4 children (23.4%) under 6 years of age reported a loss of weight.

While the issues of food insecurity and malnutrition were magnified by the ongoing pandemic, the fight for proper nutrition has already been raging for decades in the Philippines.

For more than 20 years, Knorr has been championing proper nutrition for every Filipino. After positively affecting the lives of over2 a million previously undernourished Filipino children, the leading food brand swears by its three main pillars for success—Parents, Partnerships, and Products.

Parents

In most Filipino households, moms are still the primary decision-makers for nutrition. This makes them the first line of defense against malnutrition, and an essential partner in ensuring that key measures for nutrition are effectively implemented at home.

The Knorr Nutrition Education Program—Knorr’s most successful grassroots efforts for nutrition—demonstrated the important role that moms play in ensuring that their families have access to meals that provide them with the nutrition they need to increase their chances of succeeding in life.

For over two decades, the program has been educating moms in community and classroom settings, addressing the two common barriers to proper nutrition—lack of knowledge and limited budget. Aside from teaching moms about proper eating habits and the importance of nutrition not just in one’s present but also their future, Knorr also shared recipes for delicious and nutritious meals that Filipinos are familiar with and cost little to make, including ginisangmonggo, tinola, and sinigang.

Through a proprietary 21-Day Program, Knorr provides everyone access to recipes that help diversify the family diet and prove that nutrition doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive.

In partnership with the Food and Nutrition Research Institute (DOST-FNRI), it features affordable and nutritious recipes made delicious with Knorr—thereby proving to parents that children can enjoy nutritious food served to them. The habit-changing program has shown a 6X increase in moms cooking healthy food within the communities and a 50% improvement in health amongst the children.

Partnerships

The purpose is integral to Knorr’s business. But achieving systemic change requires collaboration with other organizations that share the brand’s vision for a better world.

In the Philippines, Knorr started by working with the UN World Food Programme and Kabisig ng Kalahi for various feeding and nutrition programs spanning over 20 years.

As the company’s efforts expanded beyond feeding and into education, Knorr teamed up with government agencies to scale up its nutrition program. The nationwide reach of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) drives scalability for programs like the Knorr Nutri SarapNutrition Program, allowing it to reach families that need it the most.

The Knorr nutrition education program is poised to scale up even further through partnerships with PilipinasKontraGutom, Scaling Up Nutrition Business Network, Department of Education (DepEd), as well as various LGUs. The program currently serves 500,000 individuals across Metro Manila and CALABARZON.

Products

At the heart of Knorr’s campaign for positive nutrition is product innovation born from a passion for good food that goes right back to the brand’s earliest days. What started as products that make nutritious food taste better to have now been developed into items that provide extra nourishment.

Some of Knorr’s best-selling products have recently been reformulated to provide essential nutrients, from its Knorr Sinigang sa Sampaloc Mix Original that now contains Vitamin C, to the popular Knorr Broth Cubes that is now also a source of Iron. Both products are market leaders, enjoying widespread use across various local cuisines.

“We believe that Knorr has an important role to play in addressing the problem of malnutrition,” says Kristine Go, Vice President for Foods & Refreshments at Unilever Philippines.“Given our reach and our portfolio of nutritious and delicious products, we are in a position to make a real difference.”

Knorr’s continuing innovation and various programs for positive nutrition form part of the goals of the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan, which is the company’s mission to provide positive social impact in the markets where it operates. For more information, visitwww.knorr.com/ph and follow Knorr Philippines on Facebook and Instagram.