Thiamine Monohydrate Breakthrough: Stable Form of Vitamin B1 Approved for Global Fortification Programs

A consortium of public-health agencies and ingredient suppliers announced today that thiamine monoHydrate—the crystalline, single-water form of vitamin B1—has cleared the final regulatory hurdle needed for inclusion in the Codex Alimentarius list of recommended fortificants. The unanimous vote, taken at the 47th Session of the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses in Geneva, paves the way for millers in 189 countries to begin replacing older, less-stable thiamine salts with the monohydrate variant as early as Q1 2026.

This is a pivotal moment for global nutrition,” said Dr. Lila Navarro, Deputy Director of the Micronutrient Initiative and lead author of the dossier submitted to Codex. Thiamine monohydrate retains full bioactivity after 24 months at 40 °C and 75 % relative humidity, conditions that routinely destroy up to 30 % of the vitamin activity in traditional thiamine Hydrochloride. In practical terms, that means a fortified bag of rice or wheat flour will still deliver its labeled dose of vitamin B1 even if it sits on a dock in Lagos or Mumbai for half a year.”

The push to adopt the monohydrate form began in 2021 after a meta-analysis of 34 storage studies revealed that staple foods fortified with thiamine hydrochloride lost potency at rates that correlated strongly with tropical climates. Children in low- and middle-income countries consequently received only 54 % of the target micronutrient dose, according to data collected by UNICEF. By contrast, pilot programs in Bangladesh and Guatemala that switched to thiamine monohydrate showed losses of less than 8 % over the same period.

Ingredient suppliers have responded quickly. DSM Nutritional Products, BASF, and China’s Xinfa Pharmaceutical all confirmed that scaled-up production lines are now running at commercial volumes, and spot prices for thiamine monohydrate have fallen 22 % since January. “We built a dedicated, continuous-flow crystallizer that eliminates the hydroscopic clumping seen in earlier batches,” explained Dr. Rajiv Malhotra, Global Technology Lead at DSM. “The result is a free-flowing white powder with a tapped density of 0.68 g ml⁻¹—ideal for dry blending into flours without segregation.”

Regulators outside Codex are also moving. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration published a draft guidance in May that would allow thiamine monohydrate to be listed simply as “vitamin B1” on Nutrition Facts panels, provided the label accounts for the molecular weight difference (the monohydrate is 89 % thiamine by weight). Health Canada followed suit last week, and the European Food Safety Authority is expected to issue a positive scientific opinion this autumn.

Public-health advocates are already planning the next phase. The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) will launch a US $40 million matching-grant program in October to help small- and medium-scale mills in Africa and South Asia retrofit their feeders and quality-control labs. “We estimate that switching to thiamine monohydrate will add less than US $0.12 to the cost of fortifying one metric ton of wheat flour,” said GAIN CEO Lawrence Haddad. “That is a tiny premium for a nutrient that prevents beriberi and Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome, disorders that still affect millions.”

Industry observers note that the monohydrate form also opens new product categories. Because it is less hygroscopic, beverage manufacturers can now fortify clear, acidic sports drinks without the turbidity that thiamine hydrochloride causes. Nestlé confirmed it is piloting a thiamine-monohydrate-fortified iced coffee in Vietnam, while PepsiCo has filed a patent for a heat-stable vitamin B1 premix intended for retort-processed teas.

For consumers, the first fortified products bearing the new form should appear on shelves in Southeast Asia by March 2026, with Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa rolling out later in the year. Nutrition labels will not highlight the change, but a coalition of consumer groups led by the International Food Information Council plans an educational campaign explaining why “the same milligram of vitamin B1 now works harder in hot climates.”

In Geneva, the mood was celebratory yet cautious. Delegates agreed on a five-year monitoring plan that will track thiamine blood levels in sentinel populations to ensure real-world impact matches laboratory predictions. “Science gave us a more robust molecule,” Dr. Navarro concluded. “Now politics, logistics, and markets have to finish the job.”