At the 2021 Tokyo N4G Summit, Nutriset Group made a commitment to better the health and wellbeing of their employees, specifically to raise awareness and improve knowledge on nutrition, breastfeeding and healthy diet within their staff and progressively within their suppliers’ staff. Click here for more details.
Working with the Group’s nutrition experts and PlumpyField® project referents, the team developed educational content to address local nutrition challenges and promote essential health knowledge. The content focused on key topics such as nutrition principles, the food pyramid, food families, and the critical 1000-day period. To ensure accessibility across varied educational, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds, the company created awareness tools, including three educational posters, a workshop guide, and an e-learning tool, already deployed in France. The e-learning programme is designed to be fun and interactive, based on team games and challenges, encouraging learning and cohesion between employees.
To date, the programme has been deployed in Ethiopia, Burkina Faso and France with further deployment scheduled for the first half of 2025.
From the outset of the programme’s design and development, numerous challenges were encountered, particularly adapting content and tools to vastly different cultural realities.
In Africa and India, cultural and linguistic diversity is significant. While fundamental nutritional principles are universal, local diets, shaped by food availability and cultural traditions, required careful adaptation to ensure relevance and comprehension. To achieve this, nutrition experts collaborated closely with local teams to adapt the visuals, respecting local food customs and beliefs specific to each region. Text was minimised, with emphasis placed on visuals that were universally understood and facilitated oral discussion.
Logistical and organisational considerations at the various sites also presented a challenge. Most sites operate on a three-shift system, with teams rotating to maintain continuous production. This structure makes it difficult to organise face-to-face workshops during working hours, as gathering all employees simultaneously is complicated.
In France, the e-learning programme has been well-received, with 223 employees completing the course, representing a 96% participation rate. 85% of participants reported that they intended to use, or had already begun using, their newly acquired knowledge in their daily work, while others mentioned discussing nutrition with friends and family. The format and content were highly praised, with 97% of participants saying they would recommend the game to colleagues. The general consensus was that the team game helped to strengthen the company’s culture.
Hilina Enriched Foods, a member of the PlumpyField® network in Ethiopia, trained 100% of its workforce, comprising 126 people. All employees received theoretical training using posters and practical training through culinary workshops. In Burkina Faso, InnoFaso has trained 40% of its workforce, with further training planned for early this year.
This brings the total number of Nutriset/Groupe PlumpyField employees who have completed the “good food and nutritional practices” training course to over 400. This represents 50% of the target.
The WNA provided valuable resources, including case studies of other companies that had implemented nutrition programmes. These practical examples allowed the organisation to identify best practices in similar contexts and adopt proven strategies to maximise the impact of its initiatives. For example, by observing how certain companies addressed the challenges of cultural diversity, Groupe Nutriset was able to better adapt its own tools.
Beyond technical support, the WNA facilitated the formalisation of commitments and the measurement of progress. The e-learning feedback, measuring participant commitment and satisfaction rates, exemplifies this.
Key recommendations for companies to kickstart an employee wellbeing programme:
The Workforce Nutrition Alliance (WNA), co-founded by The Consumer Goods Forum (CGF) and the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), achieved several milestones since its inception in 2019. We are proud our nutrition programmes have reached 6 million workers through our advocacy and technical support, and we are working towards 10 million by 2030. Read our latest progress review.
