Delivering Vital Nutrients, From Policy to the Last Mile
Good nutrition is a basic human right. We’re making fortified flour available to families across Eastern Africa, including communities that traditional large-scale fortification has struggled to reach.
What began in 2001 as Project Healthy Children, working with governments to embed fortification in national food policies, has become Sanku: a technology-enabled fortification system combining the Dosifier, local premix production and last-mile supply chains to deliver vital nutrients at scale. The mission has remained constant, even as the approach has evolved.
2001 onwards
Chapter one: large-scale fortification
Project Healthy Children (PHC) was co-founded in 2001 by David Dodson and Stephanie Dodson Cornell, with a focus on a solvable problem: vitamin and mineral deficiencies that food fortification could address.
A healthy and nutritious diet is the cornerstone of a country’s development. It is one of the most cost-effective ways to prevent disease and illness, and an important step toward giving children the chance to attend school and show up ready to learn.
Initially supporting the government of Honduras to fortify food with folic acid, PHC moved on to working in sub-Saharan African countries, including Rwanda, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Liberia and Burundi, helping governments pass fortification policies, benefiting roughly 55 million people.
This work also revealed something the team had not expected. In most communities, as many as 35% of people did not have access to fortified food, even where national policies existed. Many of those families bought flour from small and medium mills that sat outside the reach of large-scale programmes. The organisation set out to solve that problem too.
2008 to 2017
Chapter Two: Building the Dosifier
By the late 2000s, PHC had a clearer view of where national fortification policies were falling short. David observed that large industrial mills, where fortification was easiest to implement, did not reach the rural communities where the need was greatest. Solving that problem needed technology that did not yet exist.
The first proof of concept fortification device was developed in 2008 in partnership with Stanford University. In 2010, Felix Brooks-Church joined PHC to lead the technical development of a Dosifier built for small and medium milling conditions, and build a business model that could reach 100 million people one day.
The first working prototype was successfully tested and proven in 2012 in Sankhu, Nepal. The village gave Sanku its name.
In 2013, Sanku was established inside PHC to take the model forward. The board decided to keep the new work under the existing 501c3, to preserve the donor base, retain the food fortification expertise inside the organisation, and avoid confusion with other partners.
In 2015, Sanku officially registered as a company in Tanzania and the first Sanku Dosifier was installed at a mill in Morogoro town, at the direct request of then-President Jakaya Kikwete. President Kikwete now serves on Sanku’s board.
Through the mid-2010s, PHC’s policy work wrapped up and came to a close operationally. At the same time, the organisation’s governance transitioned from the original PHC board to a new Sanku board, reflecting a shift from policy advocacy to operational delivery. Sanku’s work moved from concept to capability, and built the field operations, the supply chain and the relationships that would make the Sanku model scale.
In 2016, the Mulago Foundation began supporting Sanku and selected Felix as Fellow, a relationship that has now lasted over a decade. Mulago remains one of Sanku’s longest-standing supporters today.
2017 to Today
Chapter Three: Building the System
Between 2017 and 2021, Sanku tested, refined and scaled the Dosifier model in Tanzania, working with mills to make the technology, the premix supply and the field support reliable enough to scale. Reach grew steadily. Recognition followed.
In 2019, Sanku received the Zayed Sustainability Prize. In 2021, Sanku was recognised by the Rolex Awards for Enterprise. Project Healthy Children had been named a GiveWell Standout Charity in 2016, and Sanku had become one of The Life You Can Save’s recommended charities the same year.
In 2021, MacKenzie Scott’s Yield Giving made an $8 million unrestricted gift to Sanku. The gift funded a set of structural investments together: building out an East African executive leadership team, expansion into Kenya and Ethiopia, supply chain capacity, government partnerships, and Eastern Africa’s first nutrient premix factory in Tanzania.
The factory opened in 2024. Local premix production lowered costs, improved quality and removed the supply risk that had slowed fortification across the region. With reliable local premix in place, Sanku expanded its work to mills of every size, from village mills to big industrial mills, on a single commercial supply chain.
A second nutrient premix factory is under construction in Ethiopia and is expected to be completed in 2026.
In 2025, the Tanzanian government passed a mandatory fortification law covering commercial millers of every size. Sanku’s all-scale model fits the new mandate; the work continues to expand inside it.
Where the work is today
Sanku works with mills of every size across Tanzania, Kenya and Ethiopia, from village mills to large industrial millers, fortifying the flour families eat every day. Reach has grown about tenfold in recent years, built on the structural investments that came before.
Sanku hires from the communities it serves. Country operations are led by East African teams who know their mills, regulators and communities firsthand. They speak the local languages and hold the relationships that keep fortification running day to day. These teams make the model work now, and they’re who will carry it into new countries as Sanku grows.
Key Sanku Milestones
- 2001 Project Healthy Children founded by David Dodson and Stephanie Dodson Cornell
- 2008 Dosifier proof of concept, with Stanford
- 2010 Felix Brooks-Church joins to lead the Dosifier R&D
- 2013 Sanku established inside Project Healthy Children
- 2015 First Dosifier installed in Tanzania, at President Kikwete’s request
- 2016 Mulago Foundation begins supporting Sanku
- 2019 1 million people reached in Tanzania
- 2021 MacKenzie Scott’s $8M unrestricted gift
- 2024 Eastern Africa’s first premix factory opens
- 2026 73 million people reached across three countries
Help build the next phase of fortification
The model works. The next phase is scaling it.