As I discussed in Tuesday’s post, there are an increasing number of businesses producing health-improving consumer products that are affordable to customers at the base of the pyramid. Today, I will highlight a few more examples, including specialized food items meant to improve nutrition, and inexpensive filters that reduce water-borne illnesses.

Nutrition

More than 350 million children and adults worldwide are suffering from malnutrition, a problem which accounts for more than half of child mortality in low-income countries. In addition to making a person more susceptible to illness in general, a diet bereft of proper nutrients can result in otherwise easily preventable diseases. For example, a lack of iodine and iron - normally found in foods like meat that are often too expensive for the poor to buy - severely impacts child growth and intellectual development. Vitamin A deficiency is also the main cause of preventable blindness.

Seeing a market opportunity, two of the world’s largest consumer goods companies have developed products aimed at combating poor nutrition. Proctor & Gamble (P&G) has created NutriStar, a powdered health drink designed to help kids grow better while also boosting their mental alertness and performance, while Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL) has developed a more stable iodine for salt that is effective in preventing iodine deficiency disorder.

Has microfinance finally gone mainstream? The fact that the Economist devoted 10-pages to a survey of the industry this month convinces me that maybe it has. Through seven different pieces, the magazine provides both a good history of efforts made over the past three decades to bank the poor, as well as interesting prediction on where the industry is headed. In a word: commercialized.

According to the article, “Local banking giants that used to ignore the poor… are now entering the market. Even more strikingly, some of the world’s biggest and wealthiest banks, including Citigroup, Deutche Bank, Commerzbank, HSBC, ING and ABN AMRO, are dipping their toes in the water.” Fantastic!

But why the sea change? Why now? Above all, it seems to be an industry shift in mindset – from seeing the poor as charity to seeing them as customers.