World Food Day 2024: Get to know Michal Okonda, PhD student at University of Nairobi (Kenya)

17 March 2025

Ensuring the right to food for all requires collective action to tackle hunger and poverty. This means prioritising the production and consumption of diverse, safe and nutritious foods, while building resilience against shocks, vulnerabilities, and stresses.

The academic community plays a crucial role in this mission. Research, data, technology, and innovation can be powerful tools for enhancing food safety and food security, as well as for transforming agrifood systems for a better future and a better life for all.

That’s why UPRISE is taking action by training 12 PhD students under joint EU-AU supervision to become future leaders and food safety ambassadors for Africa. These researchers will play a key role in supporting food safety risk assessment and management to reduce mycotoxin levels, by developing guides, toolkits, early warning systems and microbiome- based innovations.

Get to know Michal Okonda, PhD student at University of Nairobi (Kenya).

Maziwa Mala is a fermented beverage made from milk, a common meal among the Kenyan households. Fermentation of the traditional Maziwa Mala is spontaneous while mesophilic starter cultures are responsible for fermentation in the commercial process. Fermented milk is prone to contamination by fungi that produce toxins such as Aflatoxin M1 that comes from contaminated feeds. Kenya has reported the presence of Aflatoxin M1 in milk, a human carcinogen under group 2B that is responsible for hepatic cancer.

Michal’s research aim is to enhance the Safety and Quality of Maziwa Mala using a Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) based assessment of processing techniques and microbiome innovations in selected business case studies in Kenya. The study entails mapping out the Maziwa Mala value chain by giving a detailed description of the operators in the chain and selected case studies. Operators will be assessed on knowledge, perceptions, strategies and practices regarding food safety, regulations and governance.

Hazards along the value chain will be identified then sampling and quality checks performed to identify the Critical Control Points (CCPs). In addition, A HACCP tool with the use of process flow diagram of each of the business cases will be utilised in identifying CCPs in Maziwa Mala processing then analysis of the physical, chemical and microbiological hazards along the production process will be done to propose best practices and improve process for safety. More so, a comparison of the baseline and end line indicators affecting the operation of the critical control points will also be done.

To test the impact of fermentation on the quality attributes of Maziwa Mala, sampling for mycotoxins and microbiological hazards in raw milk, milk before fermentation and fermented milk, which is the final product shall be carried out.

Furthermore, Michal will assess the quality attributes, sensorial properties and acceptability of Maziwa Mala produced using microbiome based solutions, and innovative practices. This research aligns with the UP-RISE project of safer foods. Novel isolates from traditional fermented Maasai milk that have ability to mitigate aflatoxin M1, will be used to optimize the fermentation process in the laboratory.

The findings of this work will ensure safer Maziwa Mala of higher nutritional and sensory quality, an improvement of the fermentation process as well as development and adoption of safe practices among the operators in the Maziwa Mala value chain in Kenya.

Video: Michal Okonda

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