We are delighted and proud to celebrate the 20th anniversary of probiotics in Europe. Why did these products become successful? 20 years ago barely anyone had heard the word probiotic though the idea was not altogether new. Yoghurt with beneficial lactic acid bacteria has been marketed as a health food since the days of Elie Metchnikoff and Isaac Carasso. So there was something familiar and in the consumer’s mind logical – products containing live micro-organisms can be beneficial to your health.

The vision to foresee and grasp an opportunity is crucial to success. I refer to Professor Matti Otala who has said that a vision driven product strategy makes it possible to introduce timely new products, the risks are high and profits good, while a competition driven product strategy delivers me-too products, too late and lacking competitiveness. At Valio we have to thank the visionary Dr Kari Salminen, who headed up Valio R&D in the 1980s and 1990s and was able to see the opportunities presented by new lactic acid bacteria with documented health benefits. He was also able to bring together capable people to work on the new project, among them Mr Veijo Meriläinen, Dr Seppo Salminen and later Drs. Maija Saxelin and Riitta Korpela.

Research on health benefits is crucial in the world of probiotics. Without proper documentation on the health effect a probiotic has no right to be defined as such. Valio’s Lactobacillus GG has the widest scientific documentation of any probiotic with more than 500 published studies. That does not in itself make a consumer product successful as we cannot and do not sell science to consumers. But it does provide a solid backdrop and helps marketing build a reason why the product is better than others. And naturally in marketing to healthcare professionals and key opinion leaders science is crucial.

Branding and marketing are needed to convey the message to consumers – how does the product benefit me. Without successful marketing, which should be part of the development process from the outset identifying to whom and how the product will be targeted, nobody would ever hear about a product in the first place.

Valio Gefilus® has been a great success story for Valio in Finland and neighbouring countries. Since we started early enough we were also in pole position to license our technology and the probiotic ingredient when markets started to develop, first in Europe and South America. Today there are products with Lactobacillus GG available in more than 50 markets. So many thanks to our licensees and partners for leveraging success in our region to the global markets!

Kalle Leporanta
Editor-in-Chief