Adding folic acid to flour

We’re seeking your views on our proposal to make it mandatory for flour millers to add folic acid to flour (a process known as ‘fortification’).

Mandatory fortification of flour with folic acid should help raise people’s levels of a vitamin called ‘folate’.

Raising folate levels in women who could become pregnant would help reduce the number of babies born with birth defects of the brain, spine or spinal cord, known as ‘neural tube defects’.

We want to introduce this change across the UK.