The Gambia Launches Nationwide Crackdown on Food Fortification Non-Compliance

As reported by The Point, a July 2026 survey by the National Nutrition Agency (NaNA) and the Food Safety and Quality Authority found that 96 per cent of salt, 91.9 per cent of wheat flour and 75.8 per cent of edible oil circulating in the country were unfortified. NaNA Director General Malang Fofana has launched a five-day nationwide monitoring exercise under the Food Fortification Regulation 2020, working with the National Alliance on Food Fortification to identify where compliance is breaking down at the producer and importer level.

Where the matrix is failing

The baseline numbers describe a vehicle-specific failure pattern, not a downstream consumption gap. Salt accounts for the largest non-compliance share, followed by wheat flour and edible oil — the three categories anchored in the 2020 regulation. Monitoring teams have visited the Nassim Flour Mill in Banjul, the Giboro and Soma border posts, and a salt production centre in Foni Bintang Karanai in the West Coast Region. The exercise is structured to assess producer and importer practices, identify the factors behind the low compliance rates, and produce a set of recommendations at the close of the five-day cycle.

The framing inside NaNA's campaign is enforcement, not supplementation. Officials have flagged the consumption of unfortified food as a public health concern for pregnant women and children under five — the population segments most exposed to micronutrient deficiencies. The regulatory lever is the production line and the import documentation: the points where the regulated vehicle must carry the declared micronutrient load before it reaches the consumer.

Process implications for regulated operators

For producers and importers covered by the 2020 regulation, the monitoring exercise maps onto three verification points: premix dosing at the regulated concentration, batch-level fortification records, and import documentation at border crossings. Domestic production sites — flour mills and salt facilities — are being inspected alongside inbound flows, which signals that enforcement applies across the full vehicle chain, not import-only.

The Gambia's cycle will close with a comprehensive report shared with relevant stakeholders. Comparable jurisdictions in West Africa have run parallel compliance gaps: Business News Nigeria reports that Nigeria's 2002 mandate covering flour, oil and sugar has remained below legal requirements, with rice now added to extend coverage to a wider staple base. The Gambia's exercise now tests whether a time-bounded, audit-style monitoring cycle can shift the compliance curve without restructuring the underlying regulatory framework. The technical lever remains the same — ensure the declared micronutrient concentration survives the production matrix and reaches the labelled vehicle.