Ms Oluyimika Y Adetola, a PhD Nutrition student in the Department of Consumer and Food Sciences at the University of Pretoria, recently won the Dreosti Best Oral Presentation Award at the 23^rd Biennial 2019 South African Association for Food Science and Technology (SAAFoST) congress.

She was one of a few student nutrition scientists attending the congress. This makes her achievement even more outstanding and special.

When asked about the value of winning this award, an elated Ms Adetola said: “I am delighted to win the Dreosti Award, motivating me further to pursue my passion, which lies in using my knowledge of nutrition to improve the nutritional well-being of African communities – especially children and also women of reproductive age.”

The winning paper titled “Enhancing Essential Mineral Bioaccessibility in a Cereal-based Diet Using a Food-based Approach” is part of her PhD research supervised by Prof John Taylor (Honorary President and Past President: International Association for Cereal Science and Technology (ICC)). Ms Adetola evaluated how baobab fruit that is rich in ascorbic and citric acid increased the iron nutritive value of maize porridge, a commonly consumed staple food in tropical Africa. Her PhD study is funded by the South African National Research Foundation, the World Academy of Sciences and the United States Agency for International Development.