Chakki

The 2021 State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report identified Pakistan as a food crisis country with high levels of acute food insecurity. It estimates that the prevalence of undernourishment in Pakistan is 12.9 percent. According to the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES), 16.4 percent of Pakistanis (38 million people) are moderately or severely food insecure and 1.8 percent are severely food insecure. In some districts, moderate or severe food insecurity affects 49 percent of the population.

Adding vitamins and minerals to commonly eaten foods through fortification is generally done via large-scale production systems. But in Pakistan, most people, including the poorest and most at risk of malnutrition, buy their wheat flour from one of the country’s 70,000 small-scale mills, called chakkis.

Chakki is an innovative approach to improving nutrition by fortifying wheat flour consumed in Pakistan. It equips small-scale mills, or chakkis, with innovative technology, skills and funding mechanisms to fortify flour, educate their clients, and tackle malnutrition nationwide.

 Chakki has four main objectives:

• Strengthening and extending the enabling environment, regulatory monitoring, and enforcing food fortification in partnership with the public sector;
• Expanding and sustaining wheat flour and rice fortification in compliance with national fortification standards by the private sector;
• Strengthening the design, quality assurance, monitoring, and evaluation of fortification programs;

Garnering and mobilizing global commitment, leadership, and resources to scale wheat flour and rice fortification.

WFP launched Chakki in 2019 to scale the fortification of whole wheat flour milled by chakkis in cooperation with public-private partners/ WFP supports over 150 small-scale chakkis across 22 districts in Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Islamabad to produce fortified wheat flour for local consumers. 

Chakki has supported the fortification of over 696 megatons of flour, representing 83 percent of commercial production in the two pilot districts of Islamabad and Rawalpindi. Over 3 million people in Pakistan consumed fortified flour purchased from the supported flour mills.

Chakki became an alumnus of the WFP Innovation Accelerator Scale-Up Enablement programme in 2024. 

Chakki and WFP aim to further increase the mills enrolled in the 22 districts and implement sustainable models for continued operations.