Probiotic Foods Offer Opportunities, Pitfalls

Probiotics are the uncontested star functional ingredient of the decade. Global business intelligence provider Euromonitor International highlights some current key trends, pitfalls and opportunities for packaged food manufacturers dabbling in probiotic foods.

Probiotic Yogurt the Industry Standard

Yogurt owes its very existence to bacterial cultures, whose health-enhancing properties and many different strains are still being discovered. The rise of probiotic yogurt is by far the biggest success story of any functional product category. Euromonitor data shows between 2003 to 2008, global value sales of probiotic yogurt (both spoonable and drinks) grew from US$6.8 billion to US$13.7 billion; by 2013, its value is forecast to double once more.

With consumers all over the world becoming aware that “live” yogurt is superior to pasteurized, and that specific cultures confer unique health benefits, probiotic yogurt is emerging as the new industry standard. This trend is illustrated by the fact that a decade ago, in 1998, 19 percent of total global yogurt sales were marketed as containing probiotic cultures, while by 2008 this had risen to 33 percent.

There is still a vast gulf in probiotic yogurt consumption levels between different geographies, indicating there is plenty of growth potential. For example, in the probiotic yogurt bastion of Japan, 2008 per capita consumption reached 4.3 kg. In Western Europe it stood at 2.3 kg, while in the United States, where the probiotic yogurt concept was slow to catch on, it was just 0.9 kg.

Cheesy Potential?

Encouraged by the success of probiotic ingredients in yogurt, manufacturers are understandably very keen to push these little miracle bugs into other food categories. Some attempts are bound to be more fruitful than others, and cheese is a good example of this.

Kraft Foods announced in February 2009 that its LiveActive branded probiotic cheese (cheddar, mozzarella and marbled Colby & Monterey Jack), launched in the United States in 2008, had performed disappointingly. This is not such a great surprise given that hard yellow cheese, which is full of saturated fat, salt and calories, is simply not regarded as a healthy food.

When buying cheese, consumers tend to focus on other qualities—taste, texture, price and convenience—rather than health benefits, and most are certainly not willing to pay extra for them. This is not to say that there is not a respectably sized niche market out there for probiotic yellow cheese. These products could do very well in the natural/organic food retail channel, but are unlikely to ever yield the kind of returns that appeal to mass-market packaged food players such as Kraft and Danone.

Cottage cheese, on the other hand, is a much more suitable medium for probiotics because it is naturally low in fat and counts as a protein-packed health food. Cottage cheese is very popular in the United States, with 2008 sales of US$1.4 billion, therefore offering plenty of market potential.

An Oral Health Hit?

Probiotics are in line to become the next blockbuster functional ingredient in gum and mints. Gum and mints have long enjoyed popularity thanks to attributes associated with oral health, such as breath freshening. Sugar-free gum is pretty close to becoming the industry standard and accounted for half of the US$19.6 billion global chewing gum market in 2008, according to Euromonitor.

Functional gum is the highest growth sector, achieving value growth of 10 percent on the previous year and global value sales of US$5.7 billion. This reflects consumers’ increasingly strong attraction to products that promise more than minty-fresh breath and the absence of calorie-inducing sugar. Consumers are increasingly turning to products with extra functionality, such as tooth-whitening gums and products sweetened with xylitol, which has been shown to inhibit the development of dental cavities. Xylitol has effectively revolutionized the global gum market, with virtually every major player now offering xylitol-sweetened gum.

Probiotics offer equally exciting prospects. Research has shown gum laced with lactobacilli is effective against Streptococcus mutans, which aggressively attacks tooth enamel, resulting in cavities. Many companies are already active in developing probiotic gums and mints for the mass market, such as Swedish probiotics producer BioGaia, which offers BioGaia Probiotic Chewing Gum, a sugar-free gum containing Lactobacillus reuteri (L. reuteri).

U.S-based probiotics manufacturer Nutraceutix Inc. recently developed a mint featuring three probiotic strains and is supporting research and preliminary clinical trials in a university’s work with chemotherapy patients. The mint helps fight oral thrush, dental cavities, nausea and, of course, bad breath caused by an unbalanced growth of microorganisms. Researchers believe probiotics may prevent these organisms, primarily yeasts, from over-colonizing the oral cavity, a particular problem in chemotherapy patients and others with little or no natural salivary function. It is easy to see how such a product would plug a current gap in the mint and functional gum markets.

Inactive in Indulgence

Although probiotics show a great deal of potential in the aforementioned confectionery categories, they are unlikely to achieve mainstream success in others such as chocolate. Swiss confectionery giant Barry Callebaut launched a probiotic chocolate product in 2007, stating chocolate proved to be an excellent medium for probiotic bacteria, with up to four times as many live probiotic bacteria being delivered into the intestinal tract compared to dairy products. However, consumers generally do not care much about such technologically advanced delights—probiotics and chocolate simply do not go together, and bacteria, good nor not, have no business scrabbling about in chocolate.

Another example of relatively poor consumer response is probiotic ice cream, which has been around since 1999 when the first probiotic ice cream (developed jointly between Probi and a Swedish ice cream manufacturer) was launched in Sweden. Such products continue to pop up periodically; in February 2008, Unilever launched a child-positioned probiotic popsicle in the United Kingdom as part of its Walls Milk Time range.

However, such offerings are unlikely to generate more than niche market appeal. Indulgence products and functional health-positioned ingredients are notoriously bad combinations, carrying little credibility with consumers. The only exception in the indulgence arena seems to be with components that are already an intrinsic part of a product, for instance cocoa flavonols, the promotion of which has resulted in a global dark chocolate boom.

Functional Biscuits in Developing Areas

In the last five years or so, probiotic formulators overcame some major technological challenges, enabling them to push into dry foods. Subsequently, big players such as Kellogg started to launch breakfast cereals and snack bars with added probiotics. However, a major market opportunity has so far remained untapped—probiotic biscuits.

These products could be the next generation of fortified/functional biscuits for emerging markets and developing countries, including China, India, Indonesia and Latin American countries. Nutritional deficiencies and food-borne infectious diseases, particularly in children, are rife in these geographies, and biscuits are among the most affordable fortified packaged foods on offer for low-income parents.

At present, fortification of child-targeted biscuits in these markets revolves around vitamins and minerals, particularly calcium. Probiotics have been shown to prevent food-borne infectious diseases and can also enhance the absorption of minerals, such as calcium, iron and magnesium. Both of these attributes are highly relevant to parents in developing economies and can easily be leveraged as a marketing platform for a more advanced and effective functional biscuit offering.

There are many exciting trends and opportunities in the probiotic product domain, and the global market for these offerings is far from saturated. Plenty of room is available for manufacturers to launch innovative products, as long as they do their homework, apply a modicum of common sense and carefully consider whether the aim is to plug a (potentially lucrative) niche or to tap into a mass-market audience.

Ewa Hudson manages the research programme for the global Health and Wellness industry at Euromonitor International. She oversees Euromonitor’s Health and Wellness Food and Beverages research, which provides strategic analysis and other in-depth coverage of the global market in more than 32 countries world-wide. She is also responsible for working with the international client base of Euromonitor’s online Health and Wellness Foods and Beverages – Passport.