Latest news with #EdesiaNutrition
The Herald
12 hours ago
- Business
- The Herald
USAID cuts threaten ‘God's food' made in Georgia for children in need
He has vowed to keep his factory going and his 130 workers employed, even as the Trump administration has slashed 90% of USAID contracts and $60bn in US assistance across the board. One possibility is finding another international aid organisation to support the manufacture and distribution of Mana's peanut paste packets, each about the size of a cellphone. Most of the product, which also includes powdered milk, sugar and vitamins, goes to Africa, where Moore served as a missionary in Uganda for 10 years. 'It saves children who are at the brink of no return,' said Mark Manary, an expert in childhood nutrition at Washington University's Institute for Public Health who helped develop the paste's formula. 'It's hard to wrap your mind around the need.' Manary said the food created in Georgia and at a similar operation in Rhode Island, Edesia Nutrition, is an important link in the global effort to stave off starvation of children in countries where the main killer is malnutrition. Moore hopes legislators and the Trump administration will see the value in the work and put the money back into the new federal budget. 'I believe the US government will remain involved in global food aid,' he said, adding he has spoken to Republicans and Democrats who want the work to continue. Moore is also seeking contracts with other organisations that specialise in humanitarian aid for children in crisis, including Save the Children, International Rescue Committee and Unicef. The organisations did not immediately respond to a request for comment. One bright spot in recent years was an infusion of cash from Chris Hohn, a hedge-fund billionaire based in London and a philanthropist with the Children's Investment Fund Foundation. Hohn's charity did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In recent years, Hohn has given more than $250m to Mana Nutrition, according to Moore, much of it spent on expanding the plant, more than doubling its space and adding new machinery. However, Mana needs new contracts to go forward, or another donation from philanthropists. 'We've been put on Earth for a purpose,' Moore said. 'Jesus told his disciples to go and feed the people. So we've been hustling nonstop.' Reuters
Yahoo
10-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Edesia Nutrition: 120K boxes of food at risk of expiring due to funding cuts
NORTH KINGSTOWN, R.I. (WPRI) — More than 120,000 boxes of fortified peanut paste — which Edesia Nutrition ships globally to combat severe malnutrition — will soon expire due to a lack of government funding. Navyn Salem, founder and CEO of Edesia Nutrition, told 12 News the nonprofit relies heavily on its monthly payments from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). But the North Kingstown-based nonprofit has struggled in recent months to continue its life-saving mission because of the Department of Government Efficiency's efforts to dismantle USAID. 'The termination of USAID is putting the lives of hundreds of thousands of malnourished children at risk around the world,' Salem said. 'Children can't wait for the government or other international agencies to figure out a solution. We have to act now.' RELATED: Edesia Nutrition cuts 10% of workforce due to lack of USAID funding Salem said her nonprofit has been operating without 85% of its funding. The boxes of Plumpy'Nut sitting in Edesia Nutrition's warehouse were supposed to be shipped to Sudan, where Salem said the situation is dire. 'This is one of the most critical countries that need our support,' Salem said. Salem told 12 News she's waiting on a transportation contract from the federal government to send the boxes to Sudan. But if she doesn't get that approval within the next month, the United Nations won't allow her to ship it out. In an effort to try and ship the Plumpy'Nut without the transportation contract, Edesia Nutrition has launched a Mother's Day donation drive. 'Malnutrition and undernutrition are 100% preventable,' Salem said. 'As a mother myself, it's unconscionable that children are starving to death.' 'We have the solution; we just need the funding to get our life-saving Plumpy'Nut to them,' she continued. 'A $50 donation buys one box of Plumpy'Nut that will save one child's life. This will help us give mothers around the world what they want most — healthy children.' Salem is encouraging everyone who can to donate in honor of their mother. She said each gift will be matched up to $2.4 million. Anyone interested in donating to Edesia Nutrition can do so online. Download the and apps to get breaking news and weather alerts. Watch or with the new . Follow us on social media: Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
14-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
A British billionaire funded therapeutic food production amid USAID 'craziness.' It won't be enough
NEW YORK (AP) — This 'yo-yo' of a year continues for America's nutritional peanut paste manufacturers, nonprofits that have found their lifesaving food packets disrupted by the U.S. State Department's sudden pause in foreign assistance. Georgia-based MANA Nutrition and Rhode Island-based Edesia Nutrition are two key links in the global supply chain sending nutritional mixtures of ground peanuts, powdered milk, sugar and oil to malnourished children worldwide. American farmers supply ingredients, shipping companies carry paste overseas and NGOs distribute the food throughout countries in need. Any delays complicate the network's delicate logistics, relied upon by millions of children. Yet the U.S. scrapped all of their upcoming contracts to make peanut butter paste, according to an April 4 email shared with The Associated Press detailing the U.S. Agency for International Development 's anticipated summer demand. Enough boxes to treat more than 450,000 children in Yemen were cancelled and more than 800,000 others 'will not move forward at this time.' Complicating matters further, MANA Nutrition CEO Mark Moore said USAID didn't pay $20 million in debts accumulated since December until last week. Neither maker was reimbursed by previous deadlines to expedite debt payments. Keeping MANA afloat amid the U.S. funding chaos is a longtime partner from across the pond: British billionaire hedge fund manager Chris Hohn. "The reason I can not be in just complete panic right now," Moore said last month, 'is Chris.' But the private support and reopened funding spigot are hardly enough to assure producers they will keep reaching youth in impoverished countries. And they don't expect philanthropy to replace government funding forever. The ups and downs underscore the pain felt even by the few surviving programs of the Trump administration's USAID purge that recently targeted initiatives keeping millions alive. Edesia Nutrition is still waiting to be made whole — and its production lines are running slowly. Production couldn't restart until Edesia CEO Navyn Salem saw 'at least some sign of payment." 'It honestly represents an entire life,' she said, watching a suspended conveyor belt in March. 'Every hour that goes by.' How the butter gets made A simple recipe is behind the revolutionary treatment for the estimated 45 million children younger than 5 who suffer from 'wasting.' Ten ready-to-eat pouches are filled every second inside MANA's rural factory. Locally sourced peanuts are roasted and cooled. Rollers separate kernels from skin before the peanuts are ground into paste and blended with powdered sugar. Kettles heat the final product to kill bacterial growth. The sticky paste gets pumped into sachets resembling oversized McDonald's ketchup packets. They don't need refrigeration and have a two-year shelf life. Each contains 500 calories, providing vitamins and nutrients necessary for early brain development. Malnourished children can be rehabilitated in six weeks by eating three of these energy-packed meal replacements a day. The usual cost? About $40 for a 150-packet box. This 'miracle food' became humanitarians' go-to tool for reducing undernutrition, which contributes to nearly half of deaths among children under age 5. NGOs forecast countries' need months in advance. MANA and Edesia compete for government contracts to make the paste. USAID buys their boxes and ships them overseas. Partners such as UNICEF and the World Food Program deliver them. Salem compares Plumpy'Nut — the popular brand name given by French company Nutriset — to baby formula. When the U.S. experienced a shortage, she said, parents didn't feed cookies to their children instead. 'We don't make a nice-to-have food," she said. 'You can't replace it with something else." 'Uncertainty and craziness' All the grinding and mixing was supposed to halt Jan. 29 when MANA and Edesia received stop-work orders from the U.S. State Department. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the administration sought a program-by-program review of which USAID projects, criticized as liberal, make 'America safer, stronger or more prosperous.' He moved to keep strictly life-saving emergency programs going — but confusion reigned over exemptions. Moore ignored it nonetheless. 'When you have 100,000 pounds of peanut butter surging through a system you can't just really stop,' he said. Welcome news came a week later when the stop orders were rescinded. In late February, however, Moore said USAID contracts totaling $50 million — enough to treat 300,000 children — were cancelled. That included requests for countries high on the Famine Early Warning System Network's list of places expected to most need humanitarian food assistance. Reinstatements arrived late March 2 and MANA began squeezing ready-to-use therapeutic food the following morning after about one week down. 'We're grateful,' Moore said. 'But there's been a whole lot of uncertainty and craziness injected into our lives.' Thousands of Plumpy'Nut boxes piled up in Edesia's warehouses after the Trump administration paused contracts for their truckers. Salem said some shippers even had contracts terminated while in transit. Maersk Line, Limited — a container shipping company that transports ready-to-use therapeutic food, or RUTF — worked with the U.S. government to comply with the foreign aid pause while "minimizing" supply chain disruptions, according to senior communications and media advisor Patrick Fitzgerald. Salem halted production on two lines for the first time since her nonprofit's 2010 founding. Edesia finally received $16 million in April for USAID orders shipped last year, she said, but still faces a $20 million hole that opened when the Trump administration froze humanitarian spending abroad. Lacking payments and clarity, she said she was forced to lay off 10% of Edesia's team. While this period has been difficult, Salem hopes they emerge 'more efficient and end up having more impact on children.' But switching production on and off is complicated and takes a toll. 'For sure, the ones who have the most costly price (are) children who will lose their lives as a result of these interruptions," Salem said. A British philanthropist steps up Enter Hohn. The London-based investor, who is described as unassuming, has made nutrition a cornerstone of The Children's Investment Fund Foundation. His charity declined to disclose how much money Hohn has donated to MANA. But neither the nonprofit factory nor Hohn views philanthropy as a sustainable way to fund malnutrition work that already lags behind the immense need. 'Sudden aid cuts have immediate and severe consequences for children, depriving them of life-saving support from products like RUTF," Hohn said in a statement to The Associated Press. 'While we are working with partners to minimise the impact, short-term solutions cannot replace stable, long-term government funding.' Hohn — who had previously given more than $250 million to MANA — called for 'urgent action' to bridge the funding gap and 'prevent further suffering.' The World Food Program has cut food rations and suspended nutrition assistance in recent years amid donor countries' dwindling support. A federal judge on March 10 ordered Trump officials to begin paying the roughly $2 billion owed to aid groups and businesses up to mid-February. Therapeutic food composes such a small fraction of U.S. spending that it amounts to a 'rounding error,' according to Moore. Nobody thought cuts would meaningfully help balance the federal budget. 'All of a sudden, boom. It's in the crosshairs for the first time ever as a partisan-type conversation,' he said. 'It does, though, highlight how we are at a unique moment where it could be politicized.' ___ Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP's collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP's philanthropy coverage, visit
The Hill
14-04-2025
- Business
- The Hill
A British billionaire funded therapeutic food production amid USAID ‘craziness.' It won't be enough
NEW YORK (AP) — This 'yo-yo' of a year continues for America's nutritional peanut paste manufacturers, nonprofits that have found their lifesaving food packets disrupted by the U.S. State Department's sudden pause in foreign assistance. Georgia-based MANA Nutrition and Rhode Island-based Edesia Nutrition are two key links in the global supply chain sending nutritional mixtures of ground peanuts, powdered milk, sugar and oil to malnourished children worldwide. American farmers supply ingredients, shipping companies carry paste overseas and NGOs distribute the food throughout countries in need. Any delays complicate the network's delicate logistics, relied upon by millions of children. Yet the U.S. scrapped all of their upcoming contracts to make peanut butter paste, according to an April 4 email shared with The Associated Press detailing the U.S. Agency for International Development 's anticipated summer demand. Enough boxes to treat more than 450,000 children in Yemen were cancelled and more than 800,000 others 'will not move forward at this time.' Complicating matters further, MANA Nutrition CEO Mark Moore said USAID didn't pay $20 million in debts accumulated since December until last week. Neither maker was reimbursed by previous deadlines to expedite debt payments. Keeping MANA afloat amid the U.S. funding chaos is a longtime partner from across the pond: British billionaire hedge fund manager Chris Hohn. 'The reason I can not be in just complete panic right now,' Moore said last month, 'is Chris.' But the private support and reopened funding spigot are hardly enough to assure producers they will keep reaching youth in impoverished countries. And they don't expect philanthropy to replace government funding forever. The ups and downs underscore the pain felt even by the few surviving programs of the Trump administration's USAID purge that recently targeted initiatives keeping millions alive. Edesia Nutrition is still waiting to be made whole — and its production lines are running slowly. Production couldn't restart until Edesia CEO Navyn Salem saw 'at least some sign of payment.' 'It honestly represents an entire life,' she said, watching a suspended conveyor belt in March. 'Every hour that goes by.' How the butter gets made A simple recipe is behind the revolutionary treatment for the estimated 45 million children younger than 5 who suffer from 'wasting.' Ten ready-to-eat pouches are filled every second inside MANA's rural factory. Locally sourced peanuts are roasted and cooled. Rollers separate kernels from skin before the peanuts are ground into paste and blended with powdered sugar. Kettles heat the final product to kill bacterial growth. The sticky paste gets pumped into sachets resembling oversized McDonald's ketchup packets. They don't need refrigeration and have a two-year shelf life. Each contains 500 calories, providing vitamins and nutrients necessary for early brain development. Malnourished children can be rehabilitated in six weeks by eating three of these energy-packed meal replacements a day. The usual cost? About $40 for a 150-packet box. This 'miracle food' became humanitarians' go-to tool for reducing undernutrition, which contributes to nearly half of deaths among children under age 5. NGOs forecast countries' need months in advance. MANA and Edesia compete for government contracts to make the paste. USAID buys their boxes and ships them overseas. Partners such as UNICEF and the World Food Program deliver them. Salem compares Plumpy'Nut — the popular brand name given by French company Nutriset — to baby formula. When the U.S. experienced a shortage, she said, parents didn't feed cookies to their children instead. 'We don't make a nice-to-have food,' she said. 'You can't replace it with something else.' 'Uncertainty and craziness' All the grinding and mixing was supposed to halt Jan. 29 when MANA and Edesia received stop-work orders from the U.S. State Department. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the administration sought a program-by-program review of which USAID projects, criticized as liberal, make 'America safer, stronger or more prosperous.' He moved to keep strictly life-saving emergency programs going — but confusion reigned over exemptions. Moore ignored it nonetheless. 'When you have 100,000 pounds of peanut butter surging through a system you can't just really stop,' he said. Welcome news came a week later when the stop orders were rescinded. In late February, however, Moore said USAID contracts totaling $50 million — enough to treat 300,000 children — were cancelled. That included requests for countries high on the Famine Early Warning System Network's list of places expected to most need humanitarian food assistance. Reinstatements arrived late March 2 and MANA began squeezing ready-to-use therapeutic food the following morning after about one week down. 'We're grateful,' Moore said. 'But there's been a whole lot of uncertainty and craziness injected into our lives.' Thousands of Plumpy'Nut boxes piled up in Edesia's warehouses after the Trump administration paused contracts for their truckers. Salem said some shippers even had contracts terminated while in transit. Maersk Line, Limited — a container shipping company that transports ready-to-use therapeutic food, or RUTF — worked with the U.S. government to comply with the foreign aid pause while 'minimizing' supply chain disruptions, according to senior communications and media advisor Patrick Fitzgerald. Salem halted production on two lines for the first time since her nonprofit's 2010 founding. Edesia finally received $16 million in April for USAID orders shipped last year, she said, but still faces a $20 million hole that opened when the Trump administration froze humanitarian spending abroad. Lacking payments and clarity, she said she was forced to lay off 10% of Edesia's team. While this period has been difficult, Salem hopes they emerge 'more efficient and end up having more impact on children.' But switching production on and off is complicated and takes a toll. 'For sure, the ones who have the most costly price (are) children who will lose their lives as a result of these interruptions,' Salem said. A British philanthropist steps up Enter Hohn. The London-based investor, who is described as unassuming, has made nutrition a cornerstone of The Children's Investment Fund Foundation. His charity declined to disclose how much money Hohn has donated to MANA. But neither the nonprofit factory nor Hohn views philanthropy as a sustainable way to fund malnutrition work that already lags behind the immense need. 'Sudden aid cuts have immediate and severe consequences for children, depriving them of life-saving support from products like RUTF,' Hohn said in a statement to The Associated Press. 'While we are working with partners to minimise the impact, short-term solutions cannot replace stable, long-term government funding.' Hohn — who had previously given more than $250 million to MANA — called for 'urgent action' to bridge the funding gap and 'prevent further suffering.' The World Food Program has cut food rations and suspended nutrition assistance in recent years amid donor countries' dwindling support. A federal judge on March 10 ordered Trump officials to begin paying the roughly $2 billion owed to aid groups and businesses up to mid-February. Therapeutic food composes such a small fraction of U.S. spending that it amounts to a 'rounding error,' according to Moore. Nobody thought cuts would meaningfully help balance the federal budget. 'All of a sudden, boom. It's in the crosshairs for the first time ever as a partisan-type conversation,' he said. 'It does, though, highlight how we are at a unique moment where it could be politicized.' ___
Associated Press
14-04-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
A British billionaire funded therapeutic food production amid USAID 'craziness.' It won't be enough
NEW YORK (AP) — This 'yo-yo' of a year continues for America's nutritional peanut paste manufacturers, nonprofits that have found their lifesaving food packets disrupted by the U.S. State Department's sudden pause in foreign assistance. Georgia-based MANA Nutrition and Rhode Island-based Edesia Nutrition are two key links in the global supply chain sending nutritional mixtures of ground peanuts, powdered milk, sugar and oil to malnourished children worldwide. American farmers supply ingredients, shipping companies carry paste overseas and NGOs distribute the food throughout countries in need. Any delays complicate the network's delicate logistics, relied upon by millions of children. Yet the U.S. scrapped all of their upcoming contracts to make peanut butter paste, according to an April 4 email shared with The Associated Press detailing the U.S. Agency for International Development 's anticipated summer demand. Enough boxes to treat more than 450,000 children in Yemen were cancelled and more than 800,000 others 'will not move forward at this time.' Complicating matters further, MANA Nutrition CEO Mark Moore said USAID didn't pay $20 million in debts accumulated since December until last week. Neither maker was reimbursed by previous deadlines to expedite debt payments. Keeping MANA afloat amid the U.S. funding chaos is a longtime partner from across the pond: British billionaire hedge fund manager Chris Hohn. 'The reason I can not be in just complete panic right now,' Moore said last month, 'is Chris.' But the private support and reopened funding spigot are hardly enough to assure producers they will keep reaching youth in impoverished countries. And they don't expect philanthropy to replace government funding forever. The ups and downs underscore the pain felt even by the few surviving programs of the Trump administration's USAID purge that recently targeted initiatives keeping millions alive. Edesia Nutrition is still waiting to be made whole — and its production lines are running slowly. Production couldn't restart until Edesia CEO Navyn Salem saw 'at least some sign of payment.' 'It honestly represents an entire life,' she said, watching a suspended conveyor belt in March. 'Every hour that goes by.' How the butter gets made A simple recipe is behind the revolutionary treatment for the estimated 45 million children younger than 5 who suffer from 'wasting.' Ten ready-to-eat pouches are filled every second inside MANA's rural factory. Locally sourced peanuts are roasted and cooled. Rollers separate kernels from skin before the peanuts are ground into paste and blended with powdered sugar. Kettles heat the final product to kill bacterial growth. The sticky paste gets pumped into sachets resembling oversized McDonald's ketchup packets. They don't need refrigeration and have a two-year shelf life. Each contains 500 calories, providing vitamins and nutrients necessary for early brain development. Malnourished children can be rehabilitated in six weeks by eating three of these energy-packed meal replacements a day. The usual cost? About $40 for a 150-packet box. This 'miracle food' became humanitarians' go-to tool for reducing undernutrition, which contributes to nearly half of deaths among children under age 5. NGOs forecast countries' need months in advance. MANA and Edesia compete for government contracts to make the paste. USAID buys their boxes and ships them overseas. Partners such as UNICEF and the World Food Program deliver them. Salem compares Plumpy'Nut — the popular brand name given by French company Nutriset — to baby formula. When the U.S. experienced a shortage, she said, parents didn't feed cookies to their children instead. 'We don't make a nice-to-have food,' she said. 'You can't replace it with something else.' 'Uncertainty and craziness' All the grinding and mixing was supposed to halt Jan. 29 when MANA and Edesia received stop-work orders from the U.S. State Department. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the administration sought a program-by-program review of which USAID projects, criticized as liberal, make 'America safer, stronger or more prosperous.' He moved to keep strictly life-saving emergency programs going — but confusion reigned over exemptions. Moore ignored it nonetheless. 'When you have 100,000 pounds of peanut butter surging through a system you can't just really stop,' he said. Welcome news came a week later when the stop orders were rescinded. In late February, however, Moore said USAID contracts totaling $50 million — enough to treat 300,000 children — were cancelled. That included requests for countries high on the Famine Early Warning System Network's list of places expected to most need humanitarian food assistance. Reinstatements arrived late March 2 and MANA began squeezing ready-to-use therapeutic food the following morning after about one week down. 'We're grateful,' Moore said. 'But there's been a whole lot of uncertainty and craziness injected into our lives.' Thousands of Plumpy'Nut boxes piled up in Edesia's warehouses after the Trump administration paused contracts for their truckers. Salem said some shippers even had contracts terminated while in transit. Maersk Line, Limited — a container shipping company that transports ready-to-use therapeutic food, or RUTF — worked with the U.S. government to comply with the foreign aid pause while 'minimizing' supply chain disruptions, according to senior communications and media advisor Patrick Fitzgerald. Salem halted production on two lines for the first time since her nonprofit's 2010 founding. Edesia finally received $16 million in April for USAID orders shipped last year, she said, but still faces a $20 million hole that opened when the Trump administration froze humanitarian spending abroad. Lacking payments and clarity, she said she was forced to lay off 10% of Edesia's team. While this period has been difficult, Salem hopes they emerge 'more efficient and end up having more impact on children.' But switching production on and off is complicated and takes a toll. 'For sure, the ones who have the most costly price (are) children who will lose their lives as a result of these interruptions,' Salem said. A British philanthropist steps up Enter Hohn. The London-based investor, who is described as unassuming, has made nutrition a cornerstone of The Children's Investment Fund Foundation. His charity declined to disclose how much money Hohn has donated to MANA. But neither the nonprofit factory nor Hohn views philanthropy as a sustainable way to fund malnutrition work that already lags behind the immense need. 'Sudden aid cuts have immediate and severe consequences for children, depriving them of life-saving support from products like RUTF,' Hohn said in a statement to The Associated Press. 'While we are working with partners to minimise the impact, short-term solutions cannot replace stable, long-term government funding.' Hohn — who had previously given more than $250 million to MANA — called for 'urgent action' to bridge the funding gap and 'prevent further suffering.' The World Food Program has cut food rations and suspended nutrition assistance in recent years amid donor countries' dwindling support. A federal judge on March 10 ordered Trump officials to begin paying the roughly $2 billion owed to aid groups and businesses up to mid-February. Therapeutic food composes such a small fraction of U.S. spending that it amounts to a 'rounding error,' according to Moore. Nobody thought cuts would meaningfully help balance the federal budget. 'All of a sudden, boom. It's in the crosshairs for the first time ever as a partisan-type conversation,' he said. 'It does, though, highlight how we are at a unique moment where it could be politicized.' ___ Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP's collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP's philanthropy coverage, visit
