Probiotics primer for retailers

All probiotics are not created equal. That’s the message researchers are trying to get across to the public as the market for these beneficial organisms reaches unprecedented highs.

“The biggest mistake made at the commercial level is that people say, ‘There’s a lot of information out there about probiotics in general, so I should buy something that says probiotic on it,’” says microbiologist Mary Ellen Sanders, PhD, executive director of the International Scientific Association for Probiotics and Prebiotics. “The research has clearly shown that not all probiotics function the same way.”

Roughly a century after Russian Nobel Laureate Elie Metchnikoff first suggested that ingesting certain bacteria could promote health, the concept has taken off over the past decade, with consumers (excluding Whole Foods Market and Walmart shoppers) spending $1.2 billion on probiotic foods and supplements from September 2009 to September 2010—up 27 percent from the previous 52-week period, according to SPINS, a Schaumburg, Ill.-based market research company. Probiotic supplements sales alone topped $530 million in 2009, Nutrition Business Journal reports. And according to the Global New Products Database from Chicago-based market research firm Mintel, food manufacturers launched 521 new foods and drinks with functional or digestive claims between 2007 and September 2010. Meanwhile, the number of human trials has quadrupled since 2000, with studies showing probiotics can prevent or treat gastrointestinal problems, eczema, flu-like symptoms and more.

But the surge in awareness has also sparked a flood of products that fail to meet the World Health Organization’s definition of probiotics: “live microorganisms, which when administered in adequate amounts, confer a health benefit on the host.”

“There is nothing in the scientific literature about many of the strains being sold,” says Bob Hutkins, PhD, professor of food science at the University of Nebraska.

Amid a dizzying array of options, how can retailers stock probiotic products that work, and be sure they are pointing customers toward the proper formulations?