WATCH – NutraIngredients-Asia awards winner Morinaga Milk Industry eyes international probiotic expansion

The company’s Bifidobacterium breve M-16V won the Ingredient of the Year award in the Infant Nutrition category at the second NutraIngredients-Asia awards held in Singapore.

Speaking to NutraIngredients-Asia​ at Vitafoods Asia, the company’s general manager in the R&D division, Dr. Fumiaki Abe said the probiotic strain was backed by more than 50 clinical studies.

Fumiaki said, “We first launched M-16V in 1980 in the Japan market.​”

Currently, the company is using M-16V in its infant formula for the international market, but it is also selling supplements with the strain.

“Morinaga Milk Industry also has a B2B business, and we sell our M-16V powder as a probiotic ingredient internationally​,” Fumiaki added.

He shared that hospitals were also using the strain: “More than 120 hospitals are using M-16V for infant health in premature babies​.”

M-16V is a probiotic strain demonstrated to promote healthy gut microbial colonisation, and aimed at especially protecting premature infants against devastating diseases such as necrotising enterocolitis and sepsis.

Apart from M-16V, they have other probiotic strains including bifidobacterium longum BB536, bifidobacterium infantis M-63, which have shown not only beneficial effects on infants, but also in adults.

Fumiaki said they are developing more products with these probiotic strains for the international market.

Watch the video to find out more.