Methods to improve the viability and stability of probiotics

Probiotic functional foods face high technological demands since probiotics, live microorganisms which when administered in adequate amounts confer a health benefit on the host, have to retain their viability during all the production steps and even in the Gastrointestinal [“GI”] tract of the consumer. The aim of industrial probiotic production is to produce in an affordable manner high-quality, safe end-products with long enough shelf-life. For the food industry an easy formulation of probiotic preparations into products is of concern. Thus, probiotic preparations are usually provided as highly concentrated Direct Vat Inoculation [“DVI”] products, which can be directly used at the probiotic food production site. For the successful production of high-quality probiotic products a good knowledge on the strain-specific characteristics is necessary. Viability losses of probiotic microbes unavoidably occur during their processing and formulation steps, but with a strong know-how of the production strain these losses can be minimized. A common feature for most probiotic strains is that they are specialized in living in the human or animal GI tract, which makes them well adapted to that special environment but poorly adapted to other environments. Microbes that survive and thrive in the GI tract can be difficult to propagate and down-stream process in both small and large scale. Typical problems in probiotic technology are difficulties in obtaining high cell concentrations during growth, and retaining viability during down-stream processing, formulation and in the end product.