As India moves toward achieving nutrition security, micronutrient deficiency remains a pressing public health concern – most notably Vitamin D deficiency, which now affects one in every five Indians. The ICRIER-ANVKA Foundation 2025 report, titled, “Roadmap to Address Vitamin D Deficiency in India”, highlights the potential of food and diet in addressing Vitamin D deficiency. Despite being one of the world’s largest producers of Vitamin D-rich foods such as milk, eggs and fish, such foods are not reaching the population at scale. The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) permits the voluntary fortification of only milk and edible oil with Vitamin D. The National Institute of Food Technology, Entrepreneurship and Management (NIFTEM), under the Ministry of Food Processing Industries (MoFPI), is actively engaged in research on food-based Vitamin D fortification.
International organisations like the World Health Organization (WHO), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and the United Nations International Children’s Fund (UNICEF) have recommended food fortification as one of the most cost-effective strategies to combat micronutrient deficiencies. They have also recommended the fortification of food with multiple micronutrients. Countries such as Jordan, Nigeria, Sweden, Canada, the USA and Finland have fortified many food products including milk, cheese, fat spreads, yogurt, wheat, cereals, biscuits, juice, etc., with Vitamin D.
This policy brief outlines five action points that the MoFPI may undertake to address Vitamin D deficiency through food fortification and to support processing of food to retain Vitamin D. These range from expanding fortification to staples, incentivising research and production, launching targeted pilot programmes through multi-stakeholder partnerships, promoting the production and consumption of fortified foods and supporting micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) to produce foods rich in micronutrients through subsidies and capacity building initiatives. By embedding nutrition in food processing, MoFPI can play a transformative role in realising a “Vitamin D Kuposhan Mukt Bharat”.
