Finnish dairy company Valio is a global pioneer in the dairy industry and was the first in Europe to launch probiotic dairy products, introducing the first Valio Gefilus products in Finland in March 1990, more than four years before the probiotics market really took off in Western Europe.
In the mid 1980s, Valio R&D’s vision was to create a new category of dairy products with lactic acid bacteria that have scientifically proven health benefits. In 1987, Valio licensed the global rights to the Lactobacillus GG (ATCC 53103) strain from American professors Sherwood Gorbach and Barry Goldin. This set in motion long-running research and development at Valio, as well as collaboration with universities and research centres of excellence around the world.
Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG (LGG) is now the world’s most researched probiotic strain with more than 500 studies published in scientific journals.
When did work on Lactobacillus GG start, and what was the thinking behind this work?
Kalle Leporanta: In the 1980s, the consumption of traditional Finnish fermented milk products began to fall. At the start of the decade, Valio launched A-piimä (Acidophilus) fermented milk, whose pleasant taste and healthy image made it very popular. Valio R&D meanwhile envisaged a fermented milk product with scientifically proven beneficial health effects.
Today, we use the term ‘probiotic’ to describe the bacteria responsible for fermentation in just such a product, but at the time, the word was unknown.
In the mid-1980s, Valio R&D was running a ‘lactic acid bacteria project’ seeking opportunities to develop new business based on Valio’s expertise in lactic acid bacteria. And as part of that project, the company was also looking for opportunities to discover and research ‘functional’ lactic acid bacteria.
At the same time, Professors Sherwood Gorbach and Barry Goldin at Tufts University, Boston, were doing research on lactic acid bacteria. Their first finding was that the Lactobacillus acidophilus strains commonly used in the US were actually not stable in the gastrointestinal tract. In other words, it was most likely the bacteria didn’t have any health benefits. They then started to look for more ideal strains that were resistant to acid and bile, and would attach to the human epithelial cells and colonise the gut. Finally, they had isolated from a healthy human one strain that met the criteria. They patented the strain and started to call in Lactobacillus GG. Later on, the strain was identified as Lactobacillus rhamnosus (strain GG). The patent application was submitted in 1985.
Where does the name Gefilus come from?
Leporanta: The Valio Gefilus brand is an invented name, based first on the bacteria’s working title, ‘GG’, while the ‘filus’ came from the last letters of Lactobacillus acidophilus bacteria. And so the brand became part of the history of the development of fermented milk products.
What were the first products that were launched under the Valio Gefilus brand?
Leporanta: The first product was launched in March 1990. It was a fermented whey drink flavoured with fruit, and this product is still on the market. Soon after that, we launched fermented milks that were a kind of yogurt but fermented only with Lactobacillus GG. But the first five years in the market were very difficult. It was difficult for people to understand what we were trying to do. But then everything changed in 1995-1996: the market exploded in Finland and it became easy to launch new products.
The early products included Valio Gefilus Milk in 1996, Valio Gefilus Juice Drink in 1997 and Valio Gefilus ‘daily dose drinks’ in 1999.
Give us an idea of how the range has grown in terms of the number of products, its target audience and its global spread.
Leporanta: Science alone doesn’t make probiotic products successful. They have to be of the highest quality and delicious in order to appeal to consumers. Valio R&D has worked together with the company’s production plants to develop products that are appetising and a good fit with local consumption habits. Valio now manufactures its Valio Gefilus products in five plants in Finland and one in Estonia and runs in-house culture production.
Valio has licensed rights to LGG to several companies around the world, and today there are products containing the probiotic strain available in more than 50 markets.
Valio’s internationalisation of its probiotic business began with the launch of Campina Vifit yogurts in the Netherlands in 1994. Valio Gefilus is a truly well established brand in Northern Europe, with products available in Finland, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Russia. There’s a large number of product varieties, ranging from yogurts and drinking yogurts to traditional local fermented milks (cultured buttermilk, kefir), pasteurised milk and juice drinks. Gefilus products are also available as food supplements marketed by Oriola, a Finnish distributor and wholesaler in the healthcare sector.
Finland remains the most successful market for Valio Gefilus, where the consumption of Valio Gefilus products totals more than six litres per capita per year – a world record for probiotics in any country. Valio Gefilus has paved the way not only for other probiotic products but also for other functional dairy foods, in Valio’s domestic and other European markets.
Rather than use LGG only for itself, Valio has licensed the rights to its use to several companies around the world. Tell us about that strategy and the thinking behind that approach.
Leporanta: From the beginning, Valio’s target was to market the products globally. In the beginning, we had a few partners in Scandinavia, France and Japan and our thought was that these would be our partners. Later on, it became obvious that we had to search for partners from each country or market.
Our rationale is that local partners have knowledge of the local market and Valio cannot export short shelf life fresh products far away. With a good local partner, the market penetration is much faster than what it would be by our own efforts. For the licence partner, we offer a well documented ingredient, registered trademark, our knowhow and above all the world’s best scientific documentation.
Valio has always been strong on scientific research and technology expertise. Tell us about the importance of this approach to the history and development of the company.
Leporanta: Valio’s R&D history dates back to 1916 when the ‘Valio Laboratory’ was founded. Because Valio’s R&D was able to solve several quality problems associated with Emmental cheese, butter and feed for the cows, these had a crucial role for the development of the company. And this heritage continues today. In the company, there is built-in thinking that problems can be solved and that Valio can bring onto the market really new products and technologies which are not necessarily yet used in the dairy industry elsewhere.
For Valio Gefilus, we can say that it has changed the company from a more traditional dairy into a company focusing on well-being and health. Our second slogan, after ‘Bringing taste to life’, is ‘Advances in health’. All the innovation around Valio Gefilus has also given us a good international reputation and placed us among the leaders in dairy R&D.
As to Lactobacillus GG as a probiotic ingredient, Valio started earlier than other companies, therefore we have always been ahead in research. Another feature is that almost from the beginning, Valio has enabled researchers around the world to do research on Lactobacillus GG; they have been given access to the strain. This has created a lot more research, independent of Valio itself.
There are more than 500 published studies (in peer-reviewed international scientific journals) on the Lactobacillus GG strain. This is much more than with any other probiotic strain. For most of the commercially available strains, there’s very often only a few studies available. In this way, Lactobacillus GG is totally in its own class; sometimes called the ‘Golden Standard of Probiotics’. Every respectable scientist doing research on probiotics wants to use Lactobacillus GG as a reference.
From 1993, the best scientific documentation has been the key to Valio LGG’s international success. Practically every dairy company has been interested in it because of the good science back-up.
What of the future? Can you give us an insight into what may be coming next?
Leporanta: Since the publication of the genome of Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG, the future research will focus very much on the utilisation of new information obtained from the genome. Future directions may increase the probiotic effect by better knowledge, and possibly the genome can reveal some new health benefits that haven’t been covered so far.
Kalle Leporanta is Valio export manager. He spoke to Geoff Platt, who is editor of Dairy Innovation magazine. Subscribe here.
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