Scaling up nutritional autonomy in developing countries

 

Project start-up: 2010
Financing: €2m convertible bond issue
Partner: Nutriset
 
Context
 
Child malnutrition affects 195 million children and kills almost 3 million under-fives every year. There are an increasing number of ready-to-use products to combat malnutrition, but the coverage rate continues to be extremely low.
Nutriset, a French SME founded in 1986 and based in Normandy, has developed a highly innovative range of products for the ready-to-use therapeutic food market, including Plumpy’nut, a flagship product created in 1996. This nutritive paste is distributed by international organizations and NGOs and has revolutionized the treatment of severe acute malnutrition.
Since 2005, Nutriset has been transferring part of the manufacturing of these products to the countries of the populations concerned, via a network of franchised companies.
 
Project objective
 
PROPARCO’s investment concerns the geographical expansion of this network of partner companies and aims to:
·       Increase local production;
·       Give the most vulnerable populations easier access to these products;
·       Strengthen agribusiness industries in the countries concerned.
PROPARCO also wishes to support a French company which is a model and market leader in its industry.
 
Project description
 
The international network of local manufacturers today counts 11 members on 4 continents. PROPARCO has allocated €2M of convertible bonds to Nutriset to help it expand this network. This project is also supported by other commercial banks and will last 7 years.
 
Impacts
 
Thanks to the increase in local production capacities:
 
·       Almost 5 million children suffering from severe or moderate malnutrition will be treated (against 1.3 million in 2009)
·       750 additional jobs will be created in the next five years and 3 new production units will be opened every year
·       Local and regional agricultural industries will be supported (groundnuts, sugar, oil, etc.) with spillover effects estimated at €105m over the next five years
·       The agro-industry and quality control laboratories will be developed
 
Nutriset also ensures that skills are transferred to developing countries by training its staff to use production tools (partnership with an engineering school in Burkina Faso)
 
 
“Developing countries will have a greater capacity to manage nutritional crises themselves, thanks to a national response”
  
By Michel Lescanne, CEO of Nutriset
 
“The agreement and partnership signed with PROPARCO back up our strategy to support developing countries, which is based on helping them build their own nutritional autonomy. This autonomy should give countries a greater capacity to manage nutritional crises themselves, thanks to a national response. This agreement and partnership will provide considerable support to our strategy to expand our PlumpyField network, which already counts 11 members that have united to fight malnutrition.
I am also very pleased to have the opportunity here to give an example of the real complementarities that exist in terms of expertise:  PROPARCO’s expertise in financing and supporting development and the expertise of Nutriset, which over the past 25 years has succeeded in developing original solutions to combat malnutrition.”

>>Download the press release