Under the EU-funded HealthyFoodAfrica (HFA) project, seven new healthy convenience Food products have been developed to promote the consumption of healthy and nutritious diets.

The seven products include green leafy vegetables with okro, fish chips, koobi, fish sausage, koose mix, fruity soy pancake, and instant cereal mix made of millet, maize or their combination.

Dr Amy Atter, Senior Research Scientist at Council for Scientific Industrial Research-Food Research Institute (CSIR-FRI), made the announcement during a training session for food vendors in Accra.

Dr Atter stated that the products, which were developed from local crops and fish, are aimed at helping to address malnutrition, and food waste, and improve women’s livelihoods.

“These value-added products are either ready-to-eat or semi-processed and will thus relieve women in particular – they are time and labour-saving, especially for urban dwellers. It will create more business opportunities for women, and decrease post-harvest losses in general,” she said.

Although the HFA project developed 46 food products, seven are currently being promoted for uptake. Dr Seth Agyakwah, the Project lead, emphasized the importance of processing, handling, and packaging food while encouraging processors to maintain the nutritional value, and taste and ensure the safety of food.

Ms Josephine Gomasie, Owner of Ndudu Foods, a commercial food vendor, shared her thoughts on the training, stating that she was equipped with the knowledge and skills to produce improved fruity soy pancakes for diabetic patients and maize and millet mix for children.

“With the new techniques I have learned, I am going to add more dishes to my menu and employ more workers. We have so much as a country; it’s about time we utilized our products and consumed it to grow the economy,” she said.