SaiSure Micronutrient Health Mix

Problem Statement: The WHO published a new study in The Lancet indicating that that India has the world's largest number of children dying under the age of 5, many due to preventable causes - They found that 68.2% of under-5 deaths and 83.0% of newborn deaths in 2017 resulted from mother & child malnutrition, 10.8% resulted from unsafe water, and 8.8% from air pollution.

Approach to the Problem:The need for good quality multi nutrient supplement for  vulnerable groups especially in rural areas is significant and will play an important role in bridging the nutritional deficiencies. Current multi nutrient supplements available in the market (Horlicks, Bournvita, etc.) are beyond the reach of the economically weaker sections.

Our Solution:SaiSure is a Multi Nutrient Supplement is a malt based composition for pregnant women, lactating mothers and children  designed to meet 50% of the recommended daily allowance (RDA) of most of the Micro Nutrients. 

India is one of the fastest growing economies today. Despite a steady rise in the GDP performance and increased per capita income, majority of the population don’t have access to quality healthcare, education and nutrition. 

The key reason for malnutrition is economic inequality resulting in having no access to balanced and nutritious food. They hail from poor and displaced tribal families that have a hand-to mouth existence. Among children there is vitamin/mineral deficiencies, protein-calorie malnutrition and stunted growth, thus significantly lowering the effectiveness of government programs and expenditures on rural education and healthcare.

45% of the under-five mortality in India is because of Malnutrition with high prevalence of maternal anaemia, childhood stunting and wasting.Studies have shown that 70% of the rural Indian population also have Micro Nutrient deficiencies which hinder normal growth, development, cognition and immune system, potentially impeding the adult productivity.While there are many programmes to solve the problem of hunger (Calorie-Protein deficit), focused efforts are still required to eradicate the problem of Hidden Hunger- Micro Nutrient (Vitamins and Mineral) deficiencies.

The need for good quality multi nutrient supplement for vulnerable groups especially in rural areas is significant and will play an important role in bridging the nutritional deficiencies. 

The Sri Sathya Sai Annapoorna Trust initiated providing morning nutrition to the many school going children in rural areas.Its motto is, LET NO CHILD GO TO SCHOOL HUNGRY EVER and works with a steadfast mission to feed nutritious, well-balanced breakfast to all school-going children from poor families.The trust introduced SAI SURE micro nutrient health mix, a protein mix to augment the govt provided milk with micronutrients.

Refer: https://annapoorna.org.in/

SaiSure for Pregnant Women is a Malt based ready to drink product (milk powder is one of the ingredient), blended with required Macro and Micronutrients including DHA (omega-3 fatty acid, docosahexaenoic acid) essential for healthy pregnancy, foetal growth and development.

SaiSure for Toddlers is a novel Nutrition Supplement for Children of 6 months to 3 years. This along with SaiSure for Pregnant women will ensure the critical first 1000 days of nutrition in life of the child.

SaiSure for Children is a Malt based composition for children in the age group of 3 -16 years designed to meet 50% of the recommended daily allowance (RDA) of most of the Micro Nutrients.

The products are manufactured in a FSSAI Licensed, FDA approved,CFTRI, WHO-GMP certified manufacturing facility in Bangalore with the highest quality standards. 

SaiSure for Pregnant Women is currently being provided in states of Haryana, Maharashtra and Karnataka covering more than 4000 pregnant women in 60 PHC’s through Divine Mother and Child Health Programme(DMCHP) which is preventive health initiative of Sri Sathya Sai Sanjeevani Centres for Child Heart Care. 

Refer: https://srisathyasaisanjeevani.org/

SaiSure for Children 

Malt based composition for children and adolescents in the age group of 3-16 years.It comes in two flavours- Almond and Chocolate and integrated with Government of Karnataka’s Ksheera Bhagya Programme (serving milk to 10 Million government school children).It is launched in 4 districts of Karnataka covering more than 300,000 children. In the next one year, we aim to address 500,000 children.

SaiSure was designed to meet 50% of the recommended daily allowance (RDA) of most of the Micro Nutrients. The formulation was scientifically piloted in government schools in Chikballapur district of Karnataka integrating with the Government sponsored milk programme, where 10 grams of SaiSure for Children was mixed with 150 ml of Milk. A small study of 95 random samples out of 700 children followed up for 3 months showed

Average Hemoglobin levels improved from 11.6 to 12.3,

Average percentage improvement was 6.1% over the 3 month period. 

Adoption: Our vision and success stories of addressing the nutrition gap in school going children through free SaiSure protein mix , has resulted in many of the States adopting this initiative. In line with Govt of India's Poshan Abhiyaan program,it has led us to collaborate and define MOU's with the various state governments.

Sustainability: We provide a neat and efficient social platform to help the corporates put their mandatory CSR funds to effective use. We operate through a committed base of 500+ honorary volunteers,who are located across multiple states of India,and includes working professionals, homemakers,entrepreneurs,teachers,doctors and retired professionals.

Innovation in SaiSure Micronutrient Health mix

Its formulas are developed with highest medical standards and safety as a priority, with scientific inputs from a panel of specialist doctors, nutritionists and experts in public health.

 It is approved by FSSAI, India’s top food safety and standards regulatory body, and is manufactured in a facility approved by the FDA (USA).
 Instead of being cooked, it can be added to hot milk already provided by the Government at schools and immediately served. Thus, it is easy to use and has a low carbon footprint.
 It is extremely cost-effective and the cost per student per day is INR 2.00 (0.02 USD) as compared to other commercially available health mixes. These factors allow a rapid scale-up and expansion.

 The packaging of SaiSure is recyclable and environment friendly.
 Two flavours – Almond and Chocolate which are liked by the children are produced

Invest on high-quality manufacturing and supply chain of the SaiSure health mix to cater to the huge requirement to address the malnutrition.

Development of a continuous monitoring, evaluation and learning system to ensure regular assessments of outcomes and impact lead to changes and optimizations to our theory of change, scaleup plan and project activities.

Use of cloud based solutions for streamlining the whole process of engagement with vendors, corporates, government bodies and volunteers for an effective outcome. 

Automated procedures followed for all the executions related to the manufacturing and delivery.

Cloud based solutions have helped us to address the requirements of many vendors , volunteers and self help groups.

More that 1000 vendors are engaged across India through the online cloud based technology

Over 5000 support staff in the various schools have been contacted through various digital communication channels 

In India, health problems due to malnutrition in school-age children are a common and key cause of poor health and classroom performance. Children from underprivileged communities and remote regions do not have access to nutritious food. To address this issue, we want to provide morning nutrition to 1 Million children in Government schools in the various states of India by the end of this year(2020)

Assumptions
• SaiSure, a nutritious health mix, can be mixed with hot milk provided by the Government, every morning in school to serve as a wholesome meal that affords valuable nutrition to school children.
• The cost-effectiveness of SaiSure (0.02 USD per child per day), simplicity in preparation, and its easy access via Government schools is key to rapid scaling and expansion.
• Daily consumption of SaiSure with milk gradually leads to improved health and classroom performance of school students
• Seeing the impact of SaiSure, the local community gets involved to sustain the program.

Evidence
• Prevalence of stunting and underweight in school-age Indian children [1]
• 4.3 million children attend Government schools in Karnataka and Puducherry [2]
• Role of breakfast in nutrition [3]
• Reports and testaments on SaiSure [4]

• 55% of 5-19 age children are underweight as per the Global Nutrition Report 2018 [5]

Enablers
• Spirit of selfless service that binds the entire team of committed volunteers is key internal enabler
• Long-term success depends on the Government's support for nutrition initiatives and local
community participation (external enabler)

Reference:

[1] Srivastava A, Mahmood SE, Srivastava PM, Shrotriya VP, Kumar B. Nutritional status of school-age
children - A scenario of urban slums in India. Arch Public Health. 2012;70(1):8. Published 2012 Apr 17.
doi:10.1186/0778-7367-70-8 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3436633/)

[2] Education Statistics at a Glance 2018, Govt. of India, Ministry of Human Resource and Development
(https://mhrd.gov.in/sites/upload_files/mhrd/files/statistics-new/ESAG-2018.pdf)

[3] Gibney MJ, Barr SI, Bellisle F, et al. Breakfast in Human Nutrition: The International Breakfast
Research Initiative. Nutrients. 2018;10(5):559. Published 2018 May 1. doi:10.3390/nu10050559

(https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5986439/)

[4] SaiSure evidence (https://annapoorna.org.in/saisure-evidence/)

[5] Global Nutrition Report for India (https://globalnutritionreport....
india/)

Currently we are serving 500,000 children & 4000 pregnant women across 17 states and 3 Union territories in India

Also expanding our services in other countries as well

By Dec 2020 , we plan to add another 500,000 children and another 5000 pregnant women

By 2025, we plan to scale up to 5 Million children and address close to 100,000 pregnant women.

We plan to address the below within the next 1 year and the next 5 years as well

1. SDG - 2(Zero Hunger) across the communities which we operate upon.

2. SDG - 1(No Poverty) - by addressing zero hunger, we aim to reach the no poverty stage. We reach out to remote geographies to help millions of children and adults overcome their hunger and have a healthy and balanced meal everyday. There by making them healthy and contribute to the upbringing of the society and achieve ZERO Poverty stage

3. SDG - 3 (Good Health and Well being)

Financial Barrier:

Program funding will be critical to address malnutrition given the high scale of expansion at low cost.

Support from Various entities 

Without support from government and local communities we will be unable to expand. To address this, Annapoorna has already signed Memorandum Of Understanding (MoU) with the many state governments and started providing SaiSure health mix in Government schools.

We actively pursue Government sponsorship, Government mandated CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) funds from companies to procure financial support for this project.

As we plan to engage the local community and pro-actively spread awareness about the positive impact of SaiSure we encourage villages to bear some of the associated costs while we continue to support operations.

Actively working on increasing its donor base and corporate tie-ups for CSR fundings, and are also active on various crowdfunding platforms.

Not Applicable

We have the team members as part of Solution team

Board Members: 9

Full time: 25 Employees

Part time staff: 15 Employees

Contractors/ Supporting Vendors : 30 

Honorary Volunteers / Doctors / Nutritionists: 300

Here is the list of empanelled members

Dr Satish Babu MD MRCP CCST(London) - Consultant Endocrinologist

Dr Arvind Shenoi MD DM(Neonatology) - Consultant Paediatrician

Dr Yoganada Reddy MD DNB - Consultant Paediatrician

Dr Shobha Gudi MD DNB FICOG - HoD Dept. of Obstetrics - St. Philomena Hospital, Bangalore 

Dr Shekar S MD FRACMA MMA (Aus) - Neonatologist Kangaroo Care, Bangalore

Dr Saritha P MD DCH MRCPCH (UK) - Consultant Paediatrician

Dr Nithyananda MBBS - Family Physician, Bangalore

Dr Archana K MBBS DCD DSA (UK) - Consultant Dermatologist, Bangalore

Dr Narayanmurthy MD - Critical Care Physician, Bangalore

Prof Kannan S B.Tech LLB MS PhD - Visiting Faculty, University of Illinois, USA

Smt Vidhya R DCN MSc - Nutritionist, Cloud Nine Hospitals

Smt Kusum Kunchaparty B.E - Scientist, DRDO, Bangalore

Mr Anand Kadali B.E MBA - Secretary, Sathya Sai Annapoorna Trust

Mr Kalai Selvan BSc MSc - GM, Evexia Nutrition Pvt Ltd

Mr Bharani Prasad MBA - Secretary, SaiSure, Nutrition Program

We are working closely for our production needs with below two organisations

1.EVEXIA Nutritions Pvt Ltd

http://evexianutri.com/

2.Pristine Organics Pvt Ltd

https://pristineorganics.com/

We are a Non Profit Organisation and work with Govt bodies / Foundations to support our cause

We become a pilot program on a large scale for the Govt to replicate at various at states based on the outcomes of our program

At this point of time, we don't have any business models planned. However we are open to ideas from social entrepreneurs on this topic. 

By Applying to Solve, we expect to achieve the below requirements of ours

1.Extended Networking 

2.International Community reach out

3.Funding Opportunities

4.Working with professionals / experts for guidance

Partnership goals

1. Achieve Seamless and efficient execution through partnership

2. Lower cost and High Scale model achievement

3.Sustaining the innovation through support from all communities and larger scale inistrition , foundations , governments etc

1.Government Bodies for collaborations and execution

2.Large Foundations for funding 

3.Corporates (FMCG / Retail etc) for production support 

4.Institutions / Universities for research programs