Why is folic acid being added to bread flour?

Bakers and millers say their customers are asking why folic acid is now being put into their products.

The government is giving manufacturers until the end of 2026 to conform to the new legal requirement, announced in 2024, that folic acid should be added to non-wholemeal wheat flour.

Shipton Mill, in Tetbury, said it had been receiving "20 emails a week" about the issue while Hobbs House Bakery, which has stores in Gloucestershire and Bristol, has had questions about it on social media.

The government said the move could prevent about 200 cases of issues such as spina bifida in newborns every year.

Folic acid is a man-made version of vitamin B9, which is also known as folate.

A person's body requires folate to make DNA and other genetic material.

The human body cannot synthesise B9 in sufficient amounts so folic acid is considered essential and must come mainly from diet.

It is found in leafy green vegetables as well as eggs and beef liver but many people often do not get enough of it naturally.

Folic acid is particularly vital during early pregnancy because it helps a baby's neural tube [which becomes the brain and spinal cord] to develop.

"If you don't have enough folic acid your baby can be born with a nerve system defect," said Dr Vicky Blackburn, a GP partner at the Willow Tree surgery in Stonehouse.

Dr Blackburn said women need to have good folic acid levels in the first three months of pregnancy.

"The baby's nervous system develops very, very quickly," she said.

Taking supplements to top up folic acid levels provides a solution but "life is not often like that and most pregnancy timings are unplanned", she added.

The Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) said it expected about 200 cases of neural tube deficiency - serious birth defects of the brain, spine, and spinal cord - to be prevented as a result of this move.

A spokesperson for the department also said it would save the NHS "£20m over 10 years and boost the economy by more than £90m over 10 years".

Many millers had already been putting folic acid into their white flour ahead of the requirement.

Shipton Mill said their email inbox had been full with customers "concerned" about the move.

Hobbs House Bakery, which is based in Chipping Sodbury but has shops in Nailsworth, Tetbury and Bristol, said it had put a post about folic acid being added to its bread on social media.

The bakery said there was a "mixed reaction" to the post.

"It's been a trend over the last couple of years that people are more interested and more aware of what's going into their food," Emily Oakley, from the bakery, said.

She said the bakery was keen not to "hide anything" from its customers.

There have been calls to completely abandon the practice, with a petition gaining more than 50,000 signatures.

The petition stated that those with B12 deficiency and certain cancers should avoid folic acid, describing it as "unethical to mass medicate the entire population".

Dr Blackburn said she understood that people liked "to have control over what goes into their bodies" but she said she believed the benefits outweighed the risks.

"Essentially there is no evidence that having extra folic acid in flour is going to cause any ill health in anyone," she said.

Other countries such as Canada and the US have been putting folic acid into flour for years and have seen a drop in birth defects.

The DHSC said the new regulations would help provide women with a higher baseline intake of folic acid thus "better protecting their babies in all scenarios".

A spokesperson for the government department said: "Our number one priority is the health of children.

"Scientists have carefully worked out the right amount [of folic acid] to add, so it's both effective and safe."

They added that the decision was based on "longstanding, independent, expert advice" and followed "extensive" public consultation.

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