Technical Bulletin No.15
THERAPEUTIC MILK – new sachet/carton sizes
Substantial changes have been made to the sachet sizes for F-75 and F-100 therapeutic milk, which are
now one quarter as large as previously, as well as to the carton sizes.
Therapeutic milks F-75 and F-100 are used in in-patients centres for the treatment of children with
severe acute malnutrition (SAM). The introduction of ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF) has allowed
the majority of children to be treated at the household level. As a result, treatment with therapeutic milk
is now recommended only for children with complications who need hospitalization.
F-75 and F-100 contain milk, sugar, oil, minerals and vitamins and are supplied as powders in sachets.
Previously, these needed to be reconstituted before use by adding 2 litres of boiled water to the content
of each sachet, producing thereafter about 2.4 litres of liquid milk. Reconstituted milk needs to be
consumed immediately or used within 24 hours if stored in a refrigerator. Now that most of the children
with SAM are treated in out-patient centres with RUTF, the quantity of milk reconstituted was wasted. To
try to prevent wastage, suppliers added scoops to sachets to prepare smaller volumes of milk. But this
created an additional risk of preparing wrongly diluted milk when an incorrect amount of water was
added to scoop-measured powder.
To resolve these problems, UNICEF initiated discussion in 2010 between UNICEF Programme Division,
Supply Division, Regional Offices, nutritionists working in in-patient centres, and suppliers, and
concluded that the sachet sizes should be reduced. It was agreed that the optimal volume of the milk
should be about 500 ml. Hence it was decided to reduce the sachet sizes by 75 per cent. New sachets
will be reconstituted by adding 500ml of boiled water which will result in 600 ml of liquid
milk. No scoop will be provided.
Carton sizes have also been adjusted to reflect the higher demand for F-75 and lower demand for F-100.
The F-75 carton could previously produce 48 litres of F-75 milk; this has now been increased to 72 litres.
The F-100 carton could previously produce 72 litres, but will now produce 54 litres.For details see table
below.
F-75
F-100
Old
New
Old
New
410
102.5
456
114
2
0.5
2
0.5
Volume of milk produced by 1 sachet
(litres)
2.4
0.6
2.4
0.6
Number of sachet per carton
20
120
30
90
Net weight of the carton
(kg)
8.2
12.3
13.7
10.3
Volume of milk produced by 1 carton
(litres)
48
72
72
54
Sachet size
(grams)
Volume of water to be added
(litres)
The new milks can be ordered from Supply Division by using following codes in the Programme
Management System (ProMS):
S0000208
S0000209
F-75 therapeutic diet,sachet,102.5g/CAR-120
F-100 therapeutic diet,sachet,114g/CAR-90
Product specifications are available in the UNICEF Supply catalogue accessible here:
https://supply.unicef.org
The products can be found in Section 03 Nutrition / Therapeutic food
The price of the F-75 and F-100 as calculated per litre has increased slightly because of the higher
volume of packaging material needed for the new sachet sizes. However this will be offset by the saving
on wastage of milk. The product composition has not changed and the nutritional values calculated per
100g of product remain unchanged. The product shelf life remains 24 months as well.
UNICEF Supply Division has inspected the manufacturing facilities and approved the following sources of
F-75 and F-100:
Challenge Dairy Products Inc in USA,
MSI GmbH in Germany,
Nutriset SAS in France
The composition of the products from these manufactures is identical and the products are therefore
interchangeable.
For more information, contact:
Diane Holland, [email protected], Senior Advisor Nutrition