MANA made the news!

“A Matthews man is fighting world hunger with peanut butter. The Charlotte-based company MANA Nutrition produces a peanut paste that’s been saving lives in Africa for more than a year. But to spread its reach, he’s calling on the community for support.”

Watch the News 14 Carolina video segment and read the article here!

While people all across south Georgia are settling into a feast of turkey and dressing Thursday, children in Africa and South America and other parts of the world will be feasting, too, on a peanut product made here in Fitzgerald that will help them win the fight to survive.

MANA — Mother Assisted Nutritive Aid — is a paste made of south Georgia peanuts, milk and nutrients and is a key weapon in the fight against starvation for the world’s youngest citizens. The Fitzgerald factory that produces MANA employs 20 people, with plans to double that work force next year as the plant adds a second shift, CEO Mark Moore said in an interview Friday.

Moore says he visited many communities in Georgia, Kentucky and elsewhere before settling on Fitzgerald as the site for MANA’s manufacturing facility. The big draw? Fitzgerald’s American Blanching plant and innovative owner Allen Conger

“American Blanching makes our peanut butter paste,” Moore explains. “They make 60 percent of the product. We mix in other portions and package it.”
That mix includes milk, vitamins and other nutrients. It has a shelf life of two to three years.

At present the MANA plant here, built adjacent to American Blanching in the industrial park, can produce as much as 46,000 lbs. of the product per day. That’s enough to feed more than 1,500 children suffering with severe acute malnutrition. That production level could more than double in the coming year.

The final product is purchased by UNICEF, USAID, World Vision and Samaritan’s Purse, and those organizations distribute it to children in Kenya, Sudan, Rwanda and Guatemala. MANA is also scheduled to be sent to Burundi and Ethiopia.

“If you look at a map of the world, those are the poorest countries, where kids are suffering,” Moore says.

While poverty and food shortages affect an entire population, “kids suffer the most,” Moore says.

Twenty million children are currently estimated to suffer from severe acute malnutrition, according to MANA figures. This malnutrition accounts for 35 percent of the deaths among children under age 5. At that age, from infancy through 5 years, children’s brains are still developing and the need for good nutrition is absolutely critical.

“Lots of factors contribute to making a child malnourished,” Moore says. He likens a child in danger of severe acute malnutrition to a penny at the edge of a desk. “A lot of kids are right on the edge. They live there every day. It only takes a little thing to put them over the edge.”

Malnourished children who receive MANA are not only saved from immediate starvation and death — they have an enhanced chance of survival even if the conditions they live in are not changed, Moore says. “The product moves them so far from the edge of the desk. It puts them back toward the center.”

Moore explains that in a group of, for example four kids, the youngest aged 5. If the family is very poor and food is scarce, the three older kids will get thin. “They might be struggling,” he says, “but it is the child under 6 who is likeliest to die. By the time a child is 6 years old, his brain is 90 percent finished growing.”

Malnourished children can be readily diagnosed in the field. A simple measurement of the circumference of their upper arms is a good indicator of how malnourished they are.
MANA is given to the mother of the malnourished child. She is instructed in feeding the peanut product to her child three times a day, seven days a week for a period of weeks. Depending on the severity of the child’s condition and the speed at which his body responds, he will receive the product from six to eight weeks. The child may consume from 22-33 lbs. of MANA in all.

Moore says that MANA, which is a non-profit company, sells its product for “close to what we’ve got in it. It’s expensive, with milk and peanuts in it, but we make it as affordable as possible.”

Donors can help make it more affordable, and MANA now accepts donations through its website at mananutrition.org.

Moore sees MANA as a reactive product, an emergency product. He compares it to the emergency response to the recent earthquake in Haiti, when so many were buried under buildings. “I sent a rescue team to dig, and they saved 14 people. That’s an emergency response — you’d rather have people digging than planning right after something happens. But a few days later, you have to think about what is the best way to use our resources? The answer would be to build better buildings.”

When he thinks about the future of MANA, he thinks along these lines. “I want to see us move into prevention, where we can reach kids with cheaper, smaller amounts — 50 g instead of 90 g, for kids who are not in such bad shape.” Reaching kids earlier would mean saving more lives at a fraction of the cost.”

To do that might require a new product, tailored to different needs, but possibly still made of peanuts. Moore thinks of the educator and inventor George Washington Carver. “He took a little peanut and made amazing things with it by being creative. That’s what we can do if we use more imagination.”

The Fitzgerald MANA plant made headlines recently, seeking peanuts to keep the plant in operation. The summer’s drought has meant a lower yield in south Georgia and the price of the nuts has been about three times what it was last year, Moore says. But, he notes, “We have been blessed. People in the peanut industry are very generous and they want to help kids.”

Last Sunday, Sept. 25, we at MANA Nutrition were honored to be a part of Charlotte’s Forest Hill Church’s global missions program as they hosted the president of Burundi, Pierre Nkurunziza, and pledged 100 boxes of MANA RUTF to the African nation, one of the poorest countries in the world.

The president’s visit came in the midst of the church’s program to aid Burundi in its efforts of reconciliation and peace after a 15-year civil war that ended in 2005. Forest Hill’s primary effort is to establish a Reconciliation Center in the capital city of Bujmbura that will provide leadership resources for pastors, civil officials, educators, women and children.

Last Sunday, President Nkurunziza addressed the congregation at Forest Hill’s Southpark location on the tumultuous history of Burundi and his own reliance on God. After hearing what the nation is currently doing to improve the lives of its citizens, the church announced a pledge of 15,000 MANA RUTF packets to Burundi, enough to provide 100 children with life-saving, six-week treatments. In addition to this support, each family in the congregation was given a packet of MANA RUTF that Sunday to promote awareness of global needs.

Since June, MANA has been in partnership with SANA, a project developed by Guatemalan Vice President Dr. Rafael Espada to improve the quality of life for millions of rural children, providing ready-to-use therapeutic food in the areas SANA reaches.

As Guatemala receives shipments of MANA, the SANA team is able to distribute the RUTF to the district of Chiquimula, one of the country’s poorest areas with the highest percentage of children suffering from severe acute malnutrition (SAM). An estimated 15,000 children in the area are in need of evaluation, and 5,000 are believed to suffer from SAM.

Chronic malnutrition is a major problem throughout the entire country, but there is a large concentration of children in the Chiquimula district that need immediate RUTF intervention. SANA works with physicians and a local mothers’ group to identify at-risk children in the area, not only supplying them with RUTF but also providing the communities with long-term nutrition solutions.

The first group SANA has worked with since June addresses 100 families and includes 91 children receiving RUTF treatment. Starting in September, 300 more children will also begin treatment. In addition to the RUTF treatments, chicken coops will be built for the communities and stocked with 10 chicks per child in the treatment groups. After the children complete their six-week treatment of MANA and mothers are educated to raise the chickens, the coops will serve as a steady source of much-needed protein. With each family comprised of an average of seven members, these advances will affect the lives of 2,975 Guatemalan people.

Recent donations to MANA will enable us to send RUTF to SANA for over 200 children in the Chiquimula district. By September, nearly 400 children will have received life-saving MANA!

If you would like help MANA contribute to SANA’s efforts in Guatemala, go here.

This summer my family had the opportunity to spend about seven weeks in the US. We enjoyed being with our families and friends and visiting the MANA factory in Georgia (see photos). Earlier this month we returned to Rwanda and are ready for school to begin next week. We’re ready to start renovations on the facility here! This month’s newsletter provides an update on renovation plans, a sneak peak into the packaging we plan to use here in Rwanda, and shares good news about our processing equipment.

Read more and download the PDF.

Beginning the week of June 18, severely malnourished kids in need of RUTF in Guatemala will be fed! Mana is pleased to announce our partnership with SANA, a project developed by Guatemalan Vice President Dr. Rafael Espada to improve the quality of life for the millions of rural children who do not have clean water, food to eat, or the opportunity to receive an education.

Their concept is to integrate basic health care, nutrition and primary school education in a centralized location within the town. In effect, schools become small community centers where both children and parents receive health care, nutrition and education.  Mana is excited to be a part of it all!

Stay tuned for more details…

Rwanda Facility Planning is Near Completion

For the past several weeks, our global team (located in Rwanda, Canada, and the US) has been working on the plans for the Rwanda production facility. This includes equipment selection, production flow, and food safety considerations. These decisions serve as the foundation for the renovation plans which are taking shape in the schematic below. We are interviewing prospective suppliers and pulling together the necessary budgets. Our current plan is to begin renovations in June and start production by the end of the year.

Read more and download the PDF.

Georgia Plant Producing Peanut-Based Food to Fight Malnutrition

From: GeorgiaFarmMonitor | May 13, 2011
Peanut products are a great source of nutrients, and when natural disasters strike, peanut butter and other peanut products are some of the first to arrive to provide food and protein. One company is using a special peanut product to aid in the fight against malnutrition in children around the world, and this company now has a Georgia connection. The Monitor’s Mark Wildman has the story.