Nutraceutix VP sales and marketing Tim Gamble told NutraIngredients-USA.com that the supplement retailer had decided its old formulation was not up to scratch, and threw down the gauntlet to his company to come up with a more effective product.
Survival is the main challenge facing manufacturers of probiotic products, and the first obstacle is the manufacturing process itself, when poor expertise, equipment and processes may kill off the organisms.
Rather than supplying probiotics as raw materials, Nutraceutix is an end-to-end manufacturer, taking care of every stage from culture through delivery of the finished product.
"Many people don't know how to handle probiotics, so by the time they reach the consumer they are dead," said Gamble.
The next danger is shelf-life, when the organisms can be killed by unsuitable conditions. Then, once they have made it into the consumer's hands, there is the small matter of surviving the gastric acids to arrive intact in the digestive tract, where their real work of evening out the balance of good and bad bacteria can begin.
All Nutraceutix's formulations are manufactured using the patented Live-Bac process that extends the shelf-life of probiotic tablets without the need for refrigeration. Some also incorporate BIO-tract technology, which delivers a greater number of live bacteria past the destructive gastric acids and into the digestive tract, said Gamble.
Both the process and the technology are strain independent, so they can be applied to any bacteria that the client requires.
Gamble said that probiotics manufactured by Nutraceutix have performed well in tests carried out by consumer groups such as ConsumerLab.com.
The company is also involved in a clinical trial, but Gamble was not able to provide details as to its nature at this time.
"Afterwards we will look for a client that wants to take advantage of that research and take it to market," he said.