Probiotics Made Palatable & Profitable
A product developer came looking for help with a probiotic problem. Her company made a blend of minerals, B vitamins, aminal acids, green tea extract and probiotics that could be mixed with water and consumed. But when the product was launched, consumers pushed back citing an unpleasant taste.
To make matters more confounding, two contract labs found that the probiotic levels were less than what the label declared. The product developer shared their findings and as we dug deeper, we found that the company that had originally developed the flavor profile had erred – their minerals and B vitamins were actually killing off the probiotics.
Our options were two: remove the agents causing the interaction, or separate the probiotics and microencapsulate the remaining blend of ingredients. We chose the latter, and sent a prototype to the product developer for evaluation.
Her immediate report back was that the taste and mouth-feel were much improved, and that she was pleased with the high activity of 70% (with 30% food grade GRAS encapsulating agent). Months later, the company successfully relaunched the product, saving in excess of $12.75/Kg in flavor cost and untold value to her brand.