10125353Microencapsulation of probiotic strains to improve the performance of probiotic products, therefore their impact on human healthClosedCollaborative R&DInnovate UKTo be deemed to a 'probiotic' a strain must be specified, be present and alive in significant numbers in the gut, and impart a health benefit on the host. One of the challenges when administering probiotics is ensuring they can survive in product throughout product shelf-life and reach the gut in a viable state. Being able to establish specific and optimal strains could be key in treating conditions as well as maintaining general health. Our encapsulation technology, offers proven protection to the cargo in product and offers enteric release- ideal transferable properties for probiotics. By developing a method to add beneficial strains to everyday food and drink ensuring their viability will help more people access some of these benefits- and ultimately have more choice in the strains that can be added to food and beverage products. The challenge is to develop probiotic microencapsulates that combine performance in use and in manufacturing at different conditions (i.e., stability) with desirable enteric release properties (cultures reach lower colon to provide benefit the health of the microbiome). Originally spun out from the University of Cambridge and now with a team of 40 industry-leading professionals based in the Cambridge Science Park BioInnovation Centre, Xampla's mission is to unlock the power of natural plant polymers, to benefit people and planet. Our core focus has been on developing sustainable and plastic-free solutions for plastic use cases where reducing, reusing, and recycling are not viable alternatives e.g. microplastic encapsulates for fragrances and films/coatings for packaging. Additionally, we have used our microencapsulation platform technology to branch out into vitamin microencapsulation to improve human health, with excellent success. The QIB's strategy is to innovate in food and health research with a focus on developing new solutions to modulate the gut microbiome for improving health and reducing microbial threats. Therefore this project maps perfectly to the Institutes objectives, with the QIB offering world-leading technical knowledge to the project team. In this project, we intend to complete a feasibility study to demonstrate the application of Xampla's platform microencapsulation technology to a new product area; probiotics. Microencapsulation of probiotics will enhance the functionality of refrigerated and ambient probiotic products e.g. yoghurt and soft drinks, ensuring effective shelf-life and proper enteric release, therefore real gut health benefits to consumers.