REVIEW article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Health and Nutrition
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1592601
This article is part of the Research TopicTransforming Food Systems: Addressing Malnutrition and Inequality in Low- and Middle-Income CountriesView all 24 articles
A review of the business case for workforce nutrition initiatives
Provisionally accepted
- Institute of Development Studies, Brighton, United Kingdom
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Undernutrition and malnutrition remain persistent challenges in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs), especially among workers in labour-intensive sectors. Workplace nutrition programmes (WNPs) have shown promising health benefits, but evidence on their business impact remains scarceparticularly in LMIC contexts. This review examines whether WNPs generate measurable business outcomes that could incentivise employer investment. Using a structured literature review (SLR) approach, we systematically analysed 24 relevant studies-10 systematic reviews and 14 empirical papers. Search terms targeted nutrition-related workplace interventions and business outcomes, including productivity, absenteeism, and return on investment. Searches were conducted across Scopus, ScienceDirect, Google Scholar, and grey literature sources. Studies were included if they assessed business-related outcomes of health or wellness interventions with nutrition components. Only four studies were based in LMICs; the remaining 20 were from high-income countries (HICs), underscoring a major evidence gap. Despite this, two main impact pathways emerged: (1) healthier diets improve workers' concentration and energy, reducing absenteeism and saving costs; and (2) improved nutrition enhances motivation, productivity, and work quality, which may increase sales and revenue. The first pathway is more relevant to skilled workers who are harder to replace, unlike the easily replaceable labour force common in many LMIC industries. In the second pathway, while improved nutrition may boost productivity, structural barriers-such as limited bargaining power in global supply chains-can prevent these gains from leading to better pay for workers. This review outlines key pathways through which improved worker nutrition may benefit businesses and identifies critical gaps in the evidence. It also proposes outcome indicators relevant to private sector stakeholders in LMICs, helping to guide future empirical research.
Keywords: Work, nutrition, Malnutrition, Business, Cost Savings, Absenteeism, productivity, Low-and middle-income countries
Received: 12 Mar 2025; Accepted: 10 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Quak, Ebata and Barnett. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Evert-jan Quak, Institute of Development Studies, Brighton, United Kingdom
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