The revamped site will present information about research efforts in the probiotic area and new projects and initiatives undertaken by the IPA and its members.
It is part of a move by the 10-year-old group to raise its profile globally and comes at a time when some regulators and agencies have been raising questions about probiotic marketing, even as probiotic sales continue to grow in most global markets.
The head of the IPA’s marketing committee, George Paraskevakos, said the IPA wanted the IPA website to be the “one-stop-shop” for both industry and consumers, and dismissed suggestions there needed to be a new industry-backed site to perform such a task.
Its profile-raising activities include an annual IPA conference, sponsoring events such as a recent probiotics conference hosted by the New York Academy of Sciences, and working more closely with regulators. It is also involved in a probiotic documentary due for completion this year.
Paraskevakos said the site aimed to do exactly what Henry Dixon, the owner of UK-based food industry PR firm, Barrett Dixon Bell, suggested in a recent NutraIngredients health claims round-table.
“One of the things we have looked at is the possibility of creating third party endorsement sites and one we looked at was www.probioticsforlife.org which would represent the interests of the probiotics industry – both suppliers and manufacturers – and that could disseminate positive information in a neutral and balanced way about probiotics,” Dixon said.
Paraskevakos said: “The IPA's mission is exactly in line with these initiatives hopefully making us in the near future the ‘go to’ association for industry and consumers when it comes to probiotics.”
He added, “strong regulatory relationships” had been established globally with the likes of the Codex Alimentrius, the European Food Safety Authority and the US Food and drug Administration.