Global Data Visualizations

Number of countries that have legal requirements for food fortification with vitamins or minerals over time.

Mandatory fortification occurs when governments legally oblige food producers to fortify and establishes a legal mandate for regulatory authorities to monitor industry compliance to food fortification standards. Understanding how many, and when countries made fortification mandatory is useful for advocacy purposes, and to understand time trends for fortification of widely consumed foods. The chart presents the total number of countries with mandatory fortification of any food, with any nutrient, by year, and the number of additional countries with mandatory fortification from the previous year.

• Food vehicle: The food vehicle for which data is required. If “All” is selected, the chart will display the first year that a country added mandatory fortification legislation for any food. If a country added mandatory fortification of a new food in later years, the country is not re-counted in the chart. E.g., The Philippines first mandated fortification of rice in 1952. Wheat flour was mandated in 2000, but the Philippines is only counted as a new country in the chart in 1952. To view when countries mandated a specific food, choose the food in the “Food Vehicle” filter
• Year: This refers to the year fortification was made mandatory. In other words, the published year of the original or first legislative document or mandate. This may not be the year that fortification became effective (e.g. if there was a stated grace period between document publication and implementation). “Blank” indicates date information is not available

Follow these steps to download data from the visualization as an Excel or CSV file:

• Click on the “Data” tab at the bottom of the visualization window.
• Hover over the header row of the table until an ellipses (three dots […]) appears.
• Click on “more options” and a drop-down menu will appear. Select “Export data.”
• In the new window, select the export format that best supports your needs and click the “Export” button.

• A country may have legal or official documentation for mandatory or voluntary fortification but GFDx may not have a copy. If this is the case for your country, please contact GFDx: info@fortificationdata.org.
• GFDx definition of mandatory or voluntary fortification applies to the food, not to the nutrient. For example, there is mandatory legislation for the fortification of wheat flour in Viet Nam, with iron and zinc. However, the fortification standards for wheat flour also allow the voluntary inclusion of other nutrients, e.g. vitamin A and folic acid. In this visualization, Viet Nam is considered “Yes” for mandatory fortification of wheat flour, even though not all nutrients in the fortification standard are mandatory. Where specific nutrients are listed as voluntary, please refer to the GFDx visualization “Nutrient levels in fortification standards” visualization.
• GFDx defines a food as mandatory if any of its food types, origins, or uses must be fortified under legislation. There may be other types, origins, or uses that are not required to be fortified. For example, if vegetable oil must be fortified but olive oil is not, a country would still be classified as mandatory for oils. These details can be found in the “Scope of mandatory fortification legislation” visualization.
• GFDx does not classify a country as having voluntary fortification if legal or official documents allow fortification of foods in general but nutrient levels and compounds have not been specified. For example, many countries may have minimum requirements for the addition of nutrients (e.g. 30% of recommended daily allowance) if any food is labeled as enriched/fortified or has a health claim such as “good source of X vitamin/mineral.” However, if this requirement is applied to a specific food, then the GFDx would classify it as “voluntary.”
• GFDx does not capture where foods may be fortified by food producers without the presence of any mandatory or voluntary legislation or standards.

GFDx populates its database through a bi-annual survey, aiming to reach 196 countries. In between survey cycles, the GFDx database is updated when new information is received directly from fortification partners and/or national stakeholders. To share data for your country, please contact us at info@fortificationdata.org.

For more information about GFDx methodology and indicators: GFDx Data Dictionary.

• The source is the author, name and publication information of the country-specific document. Use the “download” link to view all data and original sources.
• Country classifications of income status and geographic region are from the World Bank and United Nations, respectively.

WHO: Global database on the Implementation of Food and Nutrition Action (GIFNA).

Global Fortification Data Exchange. Chart: Cumulative number of countries with mandatory fortification by year. Accessed dd/month/yyyy. [http://www.fortificationdata.org.]