Probiotic supplier Institute Rosell and Probi have had a licensing partnership for the past three years for the marketing of Probi's Lactobacillus plantarum 299v for dietary supplements. Other markets for which agreements have been signed are Australia, France, Canada, China, Scandinavia, the UK, South Africa, Germany and the US.
The new agreements are with Smart Intermed in Greece and Rougier in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
Probi VP Per-Ola Forsberg said: "The market's great interest contributes to the expectations that the market area dietary supplements will, within a two-year period, reach that of today's sales of the functional foods market area."
He told NutraIngredients.com that royalty income from functional foods is currently around €3m. The growth curve for supplements is expected to be steeper than it has been until now, partly thanks to new territories and partly thanks to expanding sales in territories that are now emerging from their launch period.
LP299v was originally isolated from healthy colonic mucosa. In vitro studies have shown it to exert anti-microbial activity against strains of potentially pathogenic species, including Listeria and E.coli - findings supported by trials involving healthy human subjects.
A particularly robust strain, according to Forsberg, it is shelf stable in supplements at room temperature for 18 months.
Moreover, in the functional foods area, he said: "We are one of the very few companies that can have probiotics in a juice drink context, as well as in dairy."
This is due to the "rough and tough" properties of the strain, rather than encapsulation technology, a current keen area of interest for companies in the probiotics field looking to step out of the dairy category.
