Vitamin A Fortification in Palm Cooking Oil, Is It Necessary?

Vitamin A is used for growth, sight, reproduction and ephitelial cell maintenance. At present, there are still 0.8 billion people in the world are suffering vitamin A deficiency and 4000 infants in the world died caused by vitamin A deficiency (VAD). In Indonesia, 1 of 2 children and 10 million infants are suffering vitamin A deficiency. It is the threat for nation competition. Besides, according to World Health Organization (WHO), there are about 14.6% children above one year old suffering vitamin A deficiency and affected to their sight.

In early of 2011, Indonesian government has obligated the palm oil producer in adding the import synthetic vitamin A to their product which issued in Indonesia since January 2011. The policy was intended to improve public health. Food fortification is the public health policy of adding micronutrients (essential trace elements and vitamins) to foodstuffs to ensure that minimum dietary requirements are met, in this case the additional element is vitamin A. Conventional fortification process can be done by adding micronutrients into food formulations. This policy is assumed to overcome the problem of VAD because 70% of Indonesian people are consuming cooking oil.

Vitamin A fortification in cooking oil is one of ways to supply vitamin A for infants and children, including adult people, assuming that it wouldn’t affect people’s diet and couldn’t affect much to price. Instead, I think it is necessary if we do review more about this policy. Is it really become the effective way to solve vitamin A deficiency in Indonesia?

According to Widyakarya National Food and Nutrition (2004), the needs of vitamin A (µg Retinol) for child/day is 375-500 µg, for adult is 600 µg, for pregnant and lactating mother is 300-350 µg. The raw material of cooking oil is CPO (Crude Palm Oil) or Red Palm Oil. The amount of beta carotenoid as provitamin A in CPO could reach 500-1000 ppm carotenoid or 1 ml CPO contain vitamin A carotenoid 600 µg retinol. It means that 1 ml CPO can fulfill the needs of vitamin A for an adult per day. In case of daily activities, people usually use 1 litre or 1000 ml of cooking oil for their home needs. Regarding to the retinol amount above, it can be calculated that 1000 ml can fulfill a thousand people’s need of vitamin A! How amazing it is! Instead, in the fact, beta carotenoid in 1 litre of CPO is eliminated by the process of purifying, bleaching, and deodorizing. The color is goldenish yellow as we known as well in cooking oil so almost of the carotenoid had been reduced by those processes.

Through this vitamin A fortification policy, producers should add the import synthetic vitamin A into cooking oil AFTER eliminating process of provitamin A in CPO. Now, how do you think? Does this policy is a huge extravagance? The answer is absolutely YES! The policy was also be pitied by Prof.Dr.Ir. Rungkat Fransiska Zakaria, M.Sc., lecture and researcher in Department of Food Science and Technology, Bogor Agricultural University who is very concern of vitamin A deficiency problems in Indonesia.

Then, how many production of CPO in Indonesia? Extraordinarily, Indonesia is one the highest producers in the world after Malaysia. Based on data in 2007, Indonesia produced 16 million tons per year of CPO. TempoInteraktif.com stated that Indonesia is also predicted as The World Most CPO producer which production can reach 47.2% or 22.2 million tons per year. But, 60% of CPO production is exported to overseas and 40% is consumed inside the country. For local consumption, cooking oil industries are becoming the dominant CPO consumer, reaching 29.6% from total production.

The question is : “Does this policy is an appropriate way to solve vitamin A deficiency problems in Indonesia?”. Let us take a look at the financial side. Reviewing at the basic price, the local nature palm oil which is containing 550 mg/L has basic price Rp 7,-/child or Rp 7,-/malnourish child/day meanwhile the import synthetic vitamin A fortified cooking oil has Rp 25-Rp 50/kg or Rp 100/kg. CPO which is rich of beta carotenoid can be consumed in capsule form, dressing oil, emulsifier, etc. This way is very contradictive with the fortified cooking oil policy which is seems “forcing” consumers to eat frying food although it can give bad effect if it is eaten much. Besides, unless becoming capable people, buying cooking oil is not an easy way for poor people, right?

By this policy, it is apparently clear that the Indonesian government decision to fortify vitamin A into cooking oil is inappropriate way. As mentioned in SinarHarapan.com (July 16th, 2010), this mandatory can also cause higher production cost in cooking oil industry and also causing extravagant cost until Rp 200 billion each day. You can imagine by yourself if this mandatory was formally ratified as Indonesian National Standard. In other words, there would be more extravagant oil production. It is really horrible. While there are still a lot of people as victims of some terrible disasters happened in this country, instead of the government would do abundant extravagance. According to Prof. Dr. Ir. Tien R. Muchtadi, MS statement in SinarHarapan, the leader of Indonesia Palm Oil Society stated that the producers of synthetic vitamin A in the world are mostly controlled by two biggest companies from Germany, BASF and Roche.

The vitamins cartel was the “Mother of All Global Cartels.” It was the most elaborate, longest lasting, and most harmful of the international cartels discovered by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) the 1990s. Hoffmann-La Roche was fastly becoming the dominant producer of synthetic vitamins in the 1930s. Beside Roche, there is also BASF which dominate world’s vitamin market. For vitamin A, Roche dominated 48% of global market and BASF dominated 30% of global market in the early of 1990s. Is there any connection between the policy and world’s vitamin cartel? Unless the government, no one knows