Fonterra to develop dairy with time-released nutrients using VitaKey’s space-ready tech

05 Nov 2021 --- Dairy giant Fonterra has entered into a new collaboration with VitaKey using probiotic strains to design dairy products that incorporate the targeted and time-controlled release of specific nutrients, which can then be more active and beneficial in the body.

The partnership aims to bring together Fonterra’s New Zealand milk with US-based VitaKey’s precision delivery of nutrition technology, which could be utilized by NASA.

“Opportunity lies in nutrition, and the global health and wellness category is worth an estimated NZ$500 billion (US$354 billion),” Judith Swales, Fonterra Asia Pacific CEO, tells NutritionInsight.

However, the commercial and financial terms of the collaboration have not been disclosed.

“This is a collaboration that highlights the respective strengths and learnings of Fonterra and VitaKey. It’s a great match – Fonterra can incorporate VitaKey’s precision delivery of nutrition technology, while VitaKey is able to build on the goodness of Fonterra’s New Zealand milk and its extensive global supply chain that provides dairy nutrition to the world,” she adds.The partnership aims to utilize probiotics to allow nutrients to be more beneficial to the body. 

Utilizing nutrition for NASA
As part of the partnership, Fonterra is looking to design dairy products that incorporate the targeted and time-controlled release of specific dairy nutrients. The plan is to do this in a way that locks in the freshness for longer and allows the nutrients to be more active and beneficial in the body. 

“Through the technology, nutrients are encapsulated so that they are stabilized, highly targeted and don’t need to be over-fortified – this means less milk is needed,” Swales notes. This will allow milk to last longer and reduce food waste, she adds. 

The first step of the collaboration aims to stabilize probiotics and deliver them to the digestive tract.

VitaKey’s founder Dr. Robert Langer highlights his vision is “to do something that really can change the world, rather than something incremental.” 

“What we want to do is make our probiotics even more effective and efficacious by delivering the right dose to a specific part of the digestive tract and releasing it over time – similar to how many pharmaceutical drugs work,” Swales states.

“This will leverage related MIT technology developed in the Langer Lab that NASA may use to deliver probiotics to astronauts in their planned mission to Mars,” according to Fonterra. 

“We’d like this to be our probiotics, but it’s still early days,” Swales says. 

Health and wellness
Swales notes that it is too soon to know when consumers may be able to reap the benefits of the collaboration.

Nonetheless, the partnership is “appealing to the growing health and wellness consumer segment that desire the maximum functional benefits from food and are motivated by scientific credibility,” she adds.

This growing segment has largely been spurred by the pandemic, she notes. 

“COVID-19 has underscored the importance of a strong immune system, in part dependent upon the health of the digestive tract. Here we aim to use food as the first and best nutrition, and precision delivery to enhance the health and wellness of consumers.”

The importance of immunity across the industry was noted by Innova Market Insights to be a Top Trend for 2021. 

Interest in gut health has been largely spurred by COVID-19.

Beyond probiotics
Though Fonterra and VitaKey are starting their partnership with probiotics, Swales highlights that this is only the first step.

“Home to one of the largest dairy culture libraries in the world, our R&D center contains more than 40,000 strains. Two of these strains, LactoB 001 and BifidoB 019, address key health concerns such as digestive issues and immunity and are recognized as being in the top five global probiotics.”

Though she does not specify whether these two strains in particular will be utilized, she highlights that innovation will be driving the company’s future research.

“Our initial focus is on probiotics, but over time we intend to look at other opportunities across our portfolio where there is a demand and to continue to roll out innovation and precision nutrition throughout the Fonterra customer network.”

According to the company, Fonterra intends to leverage the VitaKey technology across a range of micronutrients, such as vitamin D, and introduce them into its products. 

Earlier this year, Fonterra-owned brand NZMP announced it was diversifying its probiotics with functional F&B in North American sports nutrition.

The probiotic space has seen demand driven by increasing interest in digestive and immune health, according to a recent survey.

By Andria Kades