BRAC Salt

A BRAC Social Enterprise

Ensuring body salinity of the rural poor

BRAC Salt Crushing Mill started its journey in 2004 in Islampur, Cox’s Bazar. BRAC Salt started with the purpose to fulfill the need to give people access to a cheap source of iodized salt in Bangladesh. This intervention was instrumental in tackling iodine deficiency diseases. Deficiency Disorder (IDD) can cause significant health problems like Goitre (enlargement of thyroid glands), cretinism, and deficiency specifically among pregnant women and the eventual delay of development in children. Through its health program, BRAC had witnessed first hand the large number of people suffering from iodine deficiency, so it created a salt enterprise in 2001 to help fulfill the need for iodized salt throughout the country. At the time, there was a large gap between the demand and supply of iodized salt. Moreover, much of the salt available in the local villages was not properly iodized, only sold in bulk after going through an unhygienic production process, and therefore, was not suitable for human consumption. BRAC established a salt manufacturing plant in collaboration with UNICEF and The Micronutrient Initiative. According to BRAC’s assessment, iodized salt was not just a consumer product sold in grocery stores, but also a health product with significant medical benefits. Therefore, BRAC began distributing iodized salt through theof Community Health Volunteers (CHVs) who sold the salt along with other health products to villagers for a small commission. This also ensured that BRAC would be able to reach people in remote areas that usually had no other access to properly iodized salt.

Today, BRAC produces and distributes 10,000 metric tons of iodized salt annually in Bangladesh. In the last two decades, Bangladesh made immense progress in reducing iodine deficiency and expanding the usage of iodized salt. The success is attributed to favourable government policy combined with the efforts of non-profits like UNICEF, the Micronutrient Initiative and BRAC. However, the work is not over yet and BRAC’s health volunteers continue to reach the remotest and poorest regions of the country ending iodine deficiency, one salt packet at a time.

Total land area: 1 acre and 50 decimals

Number of workers: 120 (Male-88, Female-32)

Yearly purchase of raw salt: approx. 15,000 metric tons

Yearly sale: approx. 13,000 metric tons