Despite rumblings, probiotics are still the gods of the gut

Legal issues multiply for probiotics

Dannon blazed the way for widespread consumer acceptance of the value of live cultures in food as disgestive aids.  Others have followed, including Cleveland-based Ganeden Biotech, which recently sold to Schiff Nutrition the rights to use its BC30 strain in supplements to concentrate on widening the ingredient’s uptake in foods. "If you look at the size of the food market worldwide versus the supplement market worldwide in probiotics, there's a big difference," Mike Bush, vice president of business development for Ganeden, said at the time of the deal’s closure earlier in 2011. "You have a brand like [Dannon's] Activia that's outselling most of the probiotic supplement products combined." The bigger market aside, another benefit for the food route is taking your ingredient through a GRAS affirmation.  This gets around the whole issue of whether a NDI notification might be needed.  The recent FDA guidance on the subject of NDIs stood the whole probiotics category on its head, and as of this writing seemed to leave some probiotic ingredients in legal limbo.  Those ingredients like BC30 that have GRAS status are in a more secure position.