New Metrics and Assessment Tools to Support Innovative Financing of Nutritious Foods

Background and Objective: Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), major contributors to the food sector, could play a key role in expanding access to nutritious foods in low- and middle-income countries. However, they often lack financing. Impact investment can help fill this need, but doing so effectively requires properly targeting firms that are likely to have an impact on nutrition – and on understanding this potential impact. We thus sought to define metrics for targeting and assessing nutrition-sensitive impact investment. Methods: Based on a theory of change for how such investments could impact healthy diets, we determined a need for: clear, useable definitions of nutritious foods; prioritisation of firm types; prioritisation of consumers; and simple metrics for capturing outcomes. We undertook a review of available metrics used in impact investment, as well as within nutrition, and considered their feasibility and applicability to practical application by non-specialists in low-income settings. Results: An actionable definition of nutritious foods can be applied to target SMEs but requires some simplification in order to make it applicable in a context of limited information and limited nutrition-specific expertise. Considering contextual factors is harder but can be accomplished at a basic level through simple multiple choice screening factors. Confidence in likely nutrition contribution is higher, and assessment of effects at the consumer level is easier, when considering value-chain segments closest to consumers (e.g., processors, retailers). To increase potential impact and minimize risk, however, it is also useful to include firms that are more distal (e.g., transporters, cold storage providers). Assessing consumer-level impact is challenging and may be impractical for most nutritious food financing investments; options exist for surmounting these challenges, but tracking indicators more proximate to investments (i.e., outputs) is likely to be more feasible - and potentially sufficient in many cases. Conclusions: Impact investment has considerable untapped promise for nutrition, and targeting such investments to maximize potential nutrition impact is feasible. However, it requires adapting-and simplifying-approaches and definitions usually used in the nutrition field. Applying such metrics, impact investment could be used to spur greater access to safe and nutritious food for all.