Probiotic ... prebiotic ... magic bullet or confusion for consumer?

For as long as I can remember the household cleaning brands have been telling me that their products would kill the germs, the bugs, the bacteria that threatened me in my home.

I’ve been warned since my childhood that food that has “gone off” is full of bugs, I’ve seen mold on forgotten leftovers in the fridge and I have become afraid to consume any of these baddies.

Now though a number of new products suggest I should start consuming “healthy bacteria”, that I should learn to love the good bugs. That I should go Pro Biotic and understand that my yogurt is now full of billions of bacteria or that the funny little drink pack contains a delicious blend of bugs.

Not an easy sell, and not if my UK experience is anything to go by a quick one either, but with the opportunity to create a brand with a patented active ingredient and a life enhancing benefit like Dannon’s Bifidus Regularis it is certainly quite a lure. It’s been fascinating to watch the gradual availability of these products widen from the almost quirky in health food stores through to grocery and main stream consumers. The progress, at least globally however, has not been without its problems even giant Nestle has withdrawn its LC1 range from a number of countries.

Perhaps we could see a proper functional claim, a specific health problem, a specific benefit. So I was particularly grateful to my friend Elaine Tecklenburg for pointing out to me that in May this year the FDA approved heart health claims for Barley. Now if I understood this correctly Barley can now make claims similar to Oats, and we all know how powerful that has been. What we need is the same opportunity for probiotics.

Elaine tells me that Colon cancer, asthma, blood pressure, lactose intolerance, inflammatory bowel disease, immune function, osteoporosis, etc. are all thought to benefit from probiotics. Ideally, they do, and, ideally the FDA is ready for an onslaught of petitions to allow qualified claims for these as well. Hopefully the major food companies are racing behind the scenes to clinically link specific bacterial strains and specific health conditions or diseases.

In the meantime, marketers need to be creative. Cereal companies can take a lesson from Tesco and Weetabix, who have introduced prebiotic cereal bars in the UK. Why not introduce the ultimate portable breakfast: a prebiotic cereal bar with probiotic yogurt?

A magic bullet or yet another way to confuse the poor old consumer?