Probiotic dairy products for children: An untapped market with global appeal

Chr. Hansen launches culture solution for kids' drinking yogurt with the probiotic strain L. rhamnosus, LGG®

The market for children's products is increasing rapidly with the trend towards smaller families, combined with higher disposable incomes, and parents are looking for foods that are healthy as well as tasty and convenient. At the same time, the awareness of probiotics - good bacteria - is increasing, as more and more scientific data on the correlation between digestive health and overall health is published, creating new opportunities for the innovative dairy producer.

Since Chr. Hansen acquired the world's best documented probiotic strain named LGG® a year ago, its expert scientists have spent time on integrating the unique strain into its large collection of dairy cultures, identifying the best matches and looking into new product ideas to benefit the global dairy industry and consumers worldwide.

Now they are proud to present ProKids, a concept solution for a tasty probiotic children's drinking yogurt. It is Chr. Hansen's newly developed freeze-dried DVS®culture, nu-trish®GY-1, which contains the LGG® probiotic strain together with a compatible yogurt culture, and a proven recipe that make up the backbone of the ProKids concept.

Filling a hole in the market

"We have brought out the best of the LGG® probiotic strain by combining it with a carefully compounded yogurt culture. The result is a very mild, tasty yogurt drink with a high cell count of live probiotic bacteria that will appeal to young taste buds and health conscious parents," says Dorte Eskesen, Global Marketing Manager Fresh Dairy.

"With the ProKids concept, which is available worldwide and can be merged into the dairy's own brand portfolio, we are filling a hole in the dairy market. We believe there is an untapped potential for functional dairy products specifically for children. The LGG®strain has been studied in more than 300 clinical studies and described in more than 1100 scientific publications. A strong research focus on children and their health makes the LGG® probiotic strain the natural choice for a kid's product."

The official global launch of ProKids is November 7, 2017.

Renewed awareness and perception of probiotics

"We like to see ourselves as drivers of innovation in the dairy industry and with this concept we believe to have a created a new opportunity in the dairy market at a time when the relationship between our gut flora and general health is resonating with more and more health conscious consumers and renewing the awareness and perception of probiotics," concludes Eskesen.

"We are proud to have thoroughly studied and integrated the probiotic strain LGG® into our culture collection, which holds more than 30,000 strains and keeps growing. We believe that there are vast opportunities for the LGG® brand going forward considering Chr. Hansen's wide geographic reach and deep technical knowledge and look forward to bringing other exciting concepts to the market in due course," comments Lars Bredmose, Senior Director, Fresh Dairy.

About the LGG® probiotic strain

• Isolated from a healthy human in 1985
• Characteristics and mechanisms established through extensive in vitro testing
• Numerous clinical studies in children related to respiratory health and immune defense against pathogens

The world's best documented probiotic Lactobacillus strain, LGG® - the natural choice for a probiotic dairy product for children!

Chr. Hansen is a leading, global bioscience company that develops natural ingredient solutions for the food, nutritional, pharmaceutical and agricultural industries. We develop and produce cultures, enzymes, probiotics and natural colors for a rich variety of foods, confectionery, beverages, dietary supplements and even animal feed and plant protection. Our product innovation is based on more than 30,000 microbial strains - we like to refer to them as 'good bacteria'. Our solutions enable food manufacturers to produce more with less - while also reducing the use of chemicals and other synthetic additives - which make our products highly relevant in today's world. We have been delivering value to our partners - and, ultimately, end consumers worldwide - for over 140 years. We are proud that more than one billion people consume products containing our natural ingredients every day. Revenue in the 2016/17 financial year was EUR 1,063 million. Chr. Hansen was founded in 1874 and is listed on Nasdaq Copenhagen.