Gut health research
We are fascinated by the industry’s evolving understanding of our microbiome and how brands are activating new products in the gut health space. It’s clear that the gut-brain axis has significant impact across our wellbeing, whilst new relationships between the gut and our lungs, skin and ear health are also being discovered. It’s still a relatively unregulated area, however, with many products making unsubstantiated health claims.
We explored this issue for Canvas8 and interviewed three industry experts on the future of gut health in the US, including:
Children’s gut health products emerging in the US, such as Babybel Plus+, Kaylee’s Culture and Flourish Flour, which focus on the ‘first 1,000 days’, from conception to two years, when early microbial growth and development is most crucial for immune, hormonal, metabolic, and other developmental pathways.
Pre-, pro-, post-, and synbiotic food and drink. Postbiotic and synbiotic health claims are relatively new to market and look to distinguish themselves in a crowded marketplace
Drinkable gut health formats. Enabling consumers to improve their gut health in a convenient, portable format, such as Xoca cacao fruit soda and Chobani probiotic plant-based drink.
We predicted that the three next big areas of development will be around personalisation, going beyond the gut and more punchy fermented flavours.
Prebiotics are plant fibers that feed those probiotics and native bacteria in the gut to ensure we have a varied and healthy digestive ecosystem. However, brands are increasingly focusing on the postbiotic and synbiotic market. Synbiotics is a relatively new term for substances that contain both pre- and probiotics. Postbiotics, meanwhile, are the waste product after prebiotics consume probiotics. Americans are relatively used to the concept of live bacteria, but postbiotics are pushing new frontiers with the benefit of dead bacteria.
