Biscuit is a baked crispy and crunchy product produced from appropriate recipe comprising of wheat flour, sugar, skimmed milk, shortening, bicarbonate of soda and flavourants.

Conventionally biscuits are usually produced using soft wheat flour as the major raw material.

However, there are some commercial biscuits in which composite flour(s) involving inclusion of other flours in the wheat flour from other crops such as Potato (Irish), Rice, Maize etc. have been reported.  Nutritionally, most of the conventional commercial biscuits are excellent source of energy but low in essential micro and macro nutrients required for growth and development particularly for School age children (age 5 to 12 years).  Currently there is a growing trend of malnutrition among this age group in Nigeria in view of prevailing increase in the level of poverty and unemployment.  Currently Nigeria produces annually at least 67,900 tonnes of Soybean (FAO STAT, 2014), 54, 831, 600 tonnes of Cassava (FAOSTAT, 2014), with ….. tonnes of sorghum. Post harvest losses of at least …………………. in cassava, soybean and sorghum respectively have been reported in Nigeria

This project however developed processing technologies for production of High nutrient density biscuit using appropriate formulations that incorporated predetermined levels of Soy flour, Cassava flour and Sorghum flour for the development of biscuits suitable for the school age children taking into consideration the recommended dietary allowance (RDA) as stipulated by World Health Organization and Food and Nutrition Board Organization 

The developed biscuits contained 15.02 to 15.10% crude protein, 12.51 to 17.29% fat, 61.71 to 62.51% carbohydrate providing at least 460.8 to 478.2kcal of energy per 100g biscuit consumed, rich in minerals such as iron, zinc, magnesium, calcium phosphorus and vitamins such as Thiamine, Riboflavin, Vitamin A, Niacin, folic acid, Pantothenic acid, Pyridoxine and Cyanocobalamin with Protein biological value of …………………….. Protein Efficiency ratio of --------and Net protein utilization of……………………

The developed product also supported growth of experimental animals and have been found safe for human consumption with a storage life of at least eight months and met at least a third of the recommended dietary allowance for the school age children in terms of protein, essential minerals and vitamins.

The inclusion of flour(s) from the Nigerian grown crops in the developed biscuit recipe/formulation will help greatly to stimulate increase in farmers income of those selected crops, promote rural economy, develop value chain of those selected crops, increase industrial utilization of these crops and ultimately increase job opportunities along the value chain of the selected crops for the biscuit development while improving the nutritional status of Nigerian school age children. Additionally, the developed product will ultimately help to improve on the cognitive development, attention span and scholastics performance of school age children while reducing short term hunger in School as well as increase in enrolment levels in public schools nationwide.