Bifodan wins Frost probiotic technology gong

"By developing and documenting an enteric coating system that helps to protect the viability of probiotics within the stomach's acidic environment and secures delivery of a high number of probiotics to the intestines, Bifodan has provided an opportunity for manufactures to control costs and enabled increasing popularity of probiotic supplementation among humans,"​ Frost said in handing over the Award.

Accepting the Award, Bifodan said: “Unlike traditional enteric coatings that can typically only be applied on pharmaceutical products, ProTarget is based on food approved ingredients and as such can be applied on food supplements – the legislative category for most probiotic products on the market.”​

Popular usage​

In selecting Bifodan for the Award, Frost noted the stability issues that remain a key challenge in the probiotic sector.

“Despite the well-documented effects of probiotics in maintaining health, some challenges may limit their popular usage. One of the most important of these challenges is their often poor stability as they pass through the harsh acidic environment in the stomach. Consequently only a small fraction of the viable probiotics may reach the intestines, proliferate and provide beneficial effects. ​

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This may compromise product efficacy and may require a higher dose of probiotics, increasing the cost to the end user in the process.”​

It added that its Award factored in not just the uniqueness of a particular technology, but its usability in the commercial world.

“The value of a technology does not lie in its groundbreaking deviation from the existing technologies or the production practices in the market. It lies rather in the unique combination of the unit operations and inputs that delivers optimum value to the consumer. By simplifying the process of creating new products, a technology differentiates itself among the other ones present in a market that is already oversupplied with technologies.”​

It added: “The ​uniqueness of the technology lies in its use of known ingredients, which are already approved for use with food supplement in the EU and other countries, as the key components of the coating system. This removes the requirement of further approvals of the final products by manufacturers. ProTarget’s use of known ingredients adds to the confidence of the customers in using this system for their products.”​

“This standardised process, derived out of the development team’s proprietary knowledge and specifically adapted to probiotics, is the unique feature of this technology, and is hard to replicate by competitors. Significant gastric probiotic survival under low pH conditions of the gut and subsequent release of viable probiotics in significant numbers under intestinal pH level is demonstrated by this technology through accepted pharmaceutical standards.”​

Coating research ​

Studies have shown that encapsulating probiotic bacteria in alginate-coated gelatin microspheres could protect against the stomach and upper intestine.

Another demonstrated that coating probiotic bacterial strains with alginate, then applying an extra coating of palm oil and poly-L-lysine, could significantly improve the viability of the bacteria.