When disaster strikes, food becomes more than sustenance, it becomes a lifeline.
In the critical hours following earthquakes, cyclones, conflict, or extreme weather, the World Food Programme (WFP) deploys one of its most powerful emergency tools: fortified biscuits.
These small, high-energy biscuits are packed with calories, vitamins, and minerals, designed to sustain crisis victims when conventional food delivery is delayed.
Delivered within the first 72 hours of a crisis, they often arrive before larger food supplies can be transported and distributed, especially in areas where roads are impassable or infrastructure has collapsed.
Gwenaelle Garnier, WFP’s Nutrition in Crisis Team Lead, explains that speed is essential when responding to emergencies.
“When a sudden emergency strikes, an earthquake or extreme weather event or the outbreak of war, we have to get food and nutrition to people as quickly as possible,” she says.
“But it takes time to ship food from one place to another, so while we are preparing a response, we provide these fortified biscuits. They are packed with calories, vitamins and minerals.”
With a long shelf life and compact, durable packaging, the biscuits can be stored in crisis-prone areas for immediate deployment.
WFP also maintains stocked warehouses globally to ensure rapid dispatch when disaster hits.
“They are hard so we can airdrop them in places we can't enter by truck,” Garnier adds.
In situations where people have been on the move for days or weeks, fleeing war, displacement, or disaster, fortified biscuits can be the difference between life and death.
“If you've been walking for weeks, escaping a conflict with very little to eat, or your village has been destroyed by an earthquake or a cyclone, these little biscuits help to keep you alive until food and nutrition products arrive,” Garnier emphasises.
Though small in size, these biscuits represent the first bite of hope for millions caught in the chaos of crisis. They buy precious time and save lives.