Fonterra and VitaKey have announced a dairy science collaboration focusing on the former’s probiotic strains.
VitaKey specialises in precision nutrition, an area of research that seeks to deliver the “right nutrients, in the right amount, to the right part of the body at the right time”.
Utilising VitaKey’s proprietary technology and customised solutions, Fonterra is looking to design dairy products that incorporate targeted and time-controlled release of specific dairy nutrients, starting with probiotics, in a way that allows the nutrients to be more active and beneficial in the body.
Judith Swales, CEO for Fonterra’s Asia Pacific region, said: “Home to one of the largest dairy culture libraries in the world, our research and development centre contains more than 40,000 strains. Two of these strains, LactoB 001 and BifidoB 019, address key health concerns such as digestive issues and immunity and are recognised as being in the top five global probiotics.
“By partnering with VitaKey, we aim to ‘make nature better’ by combining the goodness of our New Zealand milk with VitaKey’s technology. In this way, we can really drive our Active Living business by appealing to the growing health and wellness consumer segment that desire the maximum functional benefits from food and are motivated by scientific credibility.
The first step in the collaboration aims to stabilise probiotics and deliver them to the digestive tract. This will leverage related MIT technology developed in the Langer Lab that NASA may use to deliver probiotics to astronauts in their planned mission to Mars.
The VitaKey delivery platform has reportedly already been shown to preserve and enhance 11 different micronutrients, including Vitamin D, A, B12, and C as well as iron, zinc, niacin, and folic acid. Fonterra intends to leverage the technology across a range of micronutrients, such as Vitamin D, and introduce them into its products.
