Cosmax NBT overcomes freeze-dried probiotic issues with its Zeta probiotics technology

07 Apr 2021 --- South Korea-based probiotics company Cosmax NBT uses its new Zeta probiotics technology to preserve freeze-dried probiotics and develop a “new trend” in probiotics manufacturing for human health.

Dr. Jinhak Kim, new technology and business manager for Cosmax NBT, tells NutritionInsight that Zeta Probiotics is specifically a technology that restores the cell walls and surface charges of probiotics damaged by the freeze-drying process.

“This helps improve intestinal viability and adhesion,” Jinhak remarks. 

Since its establishment in 2002, Cosmax NBT has been  “aggressively” expanding its probiotics technology throughout the world, with factories having opened in the US, Australia and China. 

Zeta probiotics technology 
Kim explains that freeze-drying probiotics – while useful for altering delivery formats – can damage products and render them less effective in human digestion. 

Probiotics cell recovery with Zeta probiotics technology.  

“Ice crystals fatally damage probiotics in the freeze-drying process, and when exposed to human stomach acid and bile acid in this state, the viability is further reduced due to fatal stress.”

Zeta probiotics technology uses a lysine-based mixture to rehydrate freeze-dried probiotics. This improves their viability during in vitro simulated gastric and duodenum stress conditions. 

A recent study, published in Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters, used a measurement of the zeta potential to serve as an indicator of this lysine-based mixture’s cell integrity and efficacy. 

Functionality was estimated by adhesion to a human enterocyte-like Caco-2 cell line. 

The freeze-dried bacteria exhibited a significantly different zeta potential than fresh cultures. However, this condition could be restored by rehydration with the lysine mixture. Recovery of the surface charge was found to influence adhesion ability to the Caco-2 cell line.

“When compared with existing freeze-dried probiotic products, products to which Zeta probiotics technology is applied are expected to increase intestinal survival and adhesion, thereby increasing the efficiency of consumers’ probiotic intake,” explains Kim. 

AI and personalization 
Intestinal adhesion rates when treated with and without Zeta probiotics technology. Cosmax NBT is also working on using AI technology to tailor probiotics supplements to individual needs. 

“With AI and big data, customized probiotics services will be implemented faster than ever before,” says Kim. 

“In other words, through analyzing individual physical conditions, lifestyles and eating habits, it is now possible to recommend personalized functional strains, and we can offer subscription services more scientifically.” 

Cosmax NBT has mid-term and long-term strategies, such as creating a “smart factory” by developing AI solutions, as a part of digital transformation.

Innova Market Insights recently pegged “Tailored to Fit” as a top trend for 2021, bringing personalized nutrition further into the spotlight and highlighting differences in generational preferences within this category.

Freezing probiotics 
There is substantial potential for the use of Zeta probiotics technology as a rise in freeze-drying for probiotics is being seen throughout industry.

Poul Andersen from European Freeze Dry, a Denmark and UK-based company, recently explained to NutritionInsight why he sees a growing potential for freeze-drying as a technique to ensure better viability of cultured foods in the nutrition and food industries.

Freeze-dried probiotic products can be supplied as a stable supplement or ground down into a powder and inserted into tablets. 

Freeze-drying technology has evolved since it was first used as a method to dry vegetables and meats in South American mountains more than one hundred years ago, explained Andersen.

Modern techniques take frozen probiotics and gently apply heat to the raw ingredient. 

During the freeze-drying process, a deep vacuum is applied, and under these conditions, the ice leaves the product as a vapor trail, which is then captured on an ice condenser.

By Louis Gore-Langton