Smart Prebiotics - an evolution in microbiome health
2 min read
Although an order of magnitude smaller than probiotics, the market for prebiotics has experienced significant growth in recent years as consumers become more aware of prebiotics and their role in maintaining a healthy microbiome. This has naturally led to a growing interest in synbiotics, the combination of prebiotics, probiotics and postbiotics, as products targeting a healthy gut and skin microbiome become more complex.
The concept of the Smart Prebiotic was introduced by Carbiotix a little over two years ago as a means to further evolve this complexity and address several key challenges and growing themes within the nutrition industry, namely; climate-smart food, nutrition without sacrifice, fortification, futuristic food, optimising biotech, and replenishing the microbiome. Thus, one could generalise that to improve the uptake of prebiotics in the general population and address the 90% deficiency of soluble fibre in the diet of adults (impacting up to 80% of adults today), prebiotics would need to improve their efficacy, affordability, and sustainability. This became the driver behind the Smart Prebiotic concept.
Today, a Smart Prebiotic is defined as prebiotic that is upcycled, diversely sourced, customised, effective, validated and continually developed. Breaking this down into its key components:
- Upcycled means that the prebiotic is sourced from side-stream products from the plant-based food & beverage, ingredient, and feed industries.
- Diversely sourced means that the prebiotic is based on many different plant-based materials improving the characteristics of the product and a security of supply.
- Customised means that a prebiotic or synbiotic is developed based on the target application and what wants to be achieved in terms of microbiome modulation.
- Effective refers to how the prebiotic stimulates key bacteria leading to an upregulation of Short Chain Fatty Acids (SCFAs) and target human biomarkers.
- Validated refers to being able to confirm that a prebiotic is delivering value to an end consumer under real-life conditions, facilitating both transparency and personalisation.
- Continually improved refers to a prebiotic that never stops evolving with regards to its efficacy and thus improves over time.
The building blocks of the Carbiotix Smart Prebiotic concept are NutraCycle, Carbersol, LinkGut. NutraCycle is the service that sustainably sources a cost effective Carbersol, Carbiotix customizes Carbersol blends for optimum target efficacy, and LinkGut validates this effect with end consumers. Visit carbiotix.com to learn more about Carbiotix Smart Prebiotic products and services.