Interest in the human gut microbiome and the influence it exerts on a person’s wellbeing, from cognitive health to immunity, has been rapidly increasing in recent years. In this episode of HBW Insight's Over the Counter podcast we speak to Dublin-based food company Kerry Group about a particularly exciting, emerging area of microbiome-based wellness, postbiotics, which are defined by the International Scientific Association of Probiotics and Prebiotics (ISAPP) as a “preparation of inanimate microorganisms and/or their components that confers a health benefit on the host.” Given that postbiotics rely on inanimate ingredients, rather than live cultures as in yoghurts, they, may provide more suitable vehicles for consumer health innovation, suggests Kerry Group’s RDA senior manager of immune and joint health, Sonja Nodland. Nodland also explains what kinds of postbiotics are currently on the European market, for example for digestive and skin health and immunity, and the regulatory challenges that postbiotics share with other microbiome products in the region, such as pre- and pro-biotics.

Timestamps:

2:20 Introductions

4:00 What are postbiotics?

8:30 Advantages of postbiotics for consumer health innovation

10:20 Health benefits of postbiotics

12:00 Types of postbiotics

15:20 Kerry’s postbiotic portfolio

19:00 Postbiotic regulation in the European Union

28:00 Where to start with postbiotic innovation