A five-day capacity building workshop on ‘Optifood’ tool was organised jointly by LANSA, BRAC and ‘Food and Agricultural Approaches to Reducing Malnutrition’ project of Helen Keller International (HKI/FAARM) during 24-28 April 2016 at the HKI Bangladesh office.

Optifood is a software programme that uses linear programming and mathematical optimisation to generate and test diets (i.e. the lowest cost, nutritionally best diet) for specific populations. It is an innovative tool for informing nutrition policy and planning. Optifood can select the best diet from a range of possible combinations, using specific criteria such as cost, dietary patterns and available foods. It was developed through a collaboration involving the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Nutrition Technical Assistance III Project.

The workshop aimed to build sufficient understanding of the data requirements, use, outputs and potential applications for results from the Optifood software to enable rich discussion regarding its possible value to those working in Bangladesh’s nutrition sector.

The specific objectives of the workshop were to:

• introduce participants to the Optifood tool and its key functions;
• guide them in the application of the Optifood tool to 24hr recall data collected in Bangladesh;
• discuss and make decisions on key contextual issues such as dietary patterns, food list inclusions, food availability and acceptability;
• inform future analysis work by participants, including the identification of problem nutrients for key target groups, best food sources to fill nutrient gaps and food-based recommendations to improve nutrient intake.

A total of sixteen participants from BRAC, Helen Keller International, WorldFish, FAO, and University of Heidelberg participated in the workshop. The key resource person for the workshop was Frances Knight from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, facilitated by Nithya D J from MSSRF, India.