DENMARK – Danish supplier Chr. Hansen has launched a new probiotic culture solution for kids’ drinking yogurt, seeking to tap into the market for dairy products targeted at children.

The new product, ProKids, a concept solution for probiotic children’s drinking yogurt, is a newly developed freeze-dried DVS culture, nu-trish GY-1, which contains the LGG probiotic strain together with a compatible yogurt culture.

“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.

According to the company, the LGG strain has been studied in more than 300 clinical studies and described in more than 1100 scientific publications, making the LGG probiotic strain the natural choice for a kid’s product.

Chr. Hansen bought the L. rhamnosus, LGG products line in 2016.

The company’s 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.

The company says that the market for children’s products is increasing rapidly with the trend towards smaller families, combined with higher disposable incomes, while parents are looking for foods that are healthy as well as tasty and convenient.

At the same time, the awareness of probiotics 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 processor, wherever it is located around the World.

“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,” added Eskesen.

“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,” commented Lars Bredmose, Senior Director, Fresh Dairy.