Sri Lanka Thriposha Program

The Thriposha Program (Sinhala: ශ්‍රී ලංකා ත්‍රිපෝෂ වැඩසටහන) is the first comprehensive island-wide nutrition supplementary food program carried out by the Government of Sri Lanka (Jayatissa, 2005). The distributed food item through this program is Thriposha (which means triple nutrient) and it is a pre-cooked cereal and legume-based food containing maize (66%), soya (30%), full cream milk powder (3%) and vitamin (0.1%) and minerals [(0.9%) Jayatissa, 2005; Tharaka et al., 2014]. The manufacturing plant of Thriposha is located at Kapuwatta in Ja-Ela.

History
The program was initiated by the government in 1973 with the assistance of the CARE organization, a U.S. private voluntary organization (Hornstein, 1986; Jayatissa, 2005). Support for the program was also provided by USAID, United States Agency for International Development (Hornstein, 1986). Initially, the prepared food was imported from the USA and distributed in the country. In 1976, the program was undertaken by the Ministry of Health with the financial assistance of CARE and thereafter, its management was handed over to the Ceylon Tobacco Company to maintain as a private company.

The company was taken over by the Ministry of Health as a fully government-owned company in the name of Sri Lanka Thriposha Ltd., with effect from 17-09-2010 under the Companies Act no. 07 of 2007 and under registration no. PB/3873.

Purpose
The purpose of the Thriposha program was to provide an energy and reference protein dense, with all required micro-nutrients, as a supplement to the most nutritionally vulnerable segments of the population such as pregnant and lactating women and children from 6 to 59 months of age (Jayatissa, 2005). It is distributed free of charge by the government Tharaka et al., 2014).

References
1) Hornstein, I., 1986. Thriposha product and program. Food Technology Branch, Office of International Cooperation and Development, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture. p.1.
2) Jayatissa, R., 2005. National Nutrition Thriposha Intervention Programme to combat malnutrition in Mothers and Children of Sri Lanka. pp.1-20.
3) Tharaka, H.M.D., Ratnayake, R.M.U., Senevirathna, R.M.I.S.K., Ranadheera, C.S. and Jayawardana, N.W.I.A., 2014. Determination of Nutrient Levels and Antioxidant Content of Thriposha and A Similar Market Product. p.44.

Location Map
This page was last updated on 26 October 2022
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