Abstract:
Yogurt is a milk-based product manufactured by
lactic acid fermentation enabled by symbiotic yogurt
cultures. Yogurt is largely considered to be a health
product, and it is employed to deliver probiotics and
prebiotics to the consumer. However, not all yogurts
are probiotic, neither are they all functional products.
There is increasing demand for health-promoting beverages,
which is prompting the dairy industry to develop
functional probiotic yogurts to meet the demand. However,
there seems to be a scarcity of reviews providing
critical information on regulatory frameworks in regions
of the world, clinical trial outcomes, and methodological
approaches for enumerating multiprobiotic strains in
yogurt. This review, relating to functional probiotic yogurt,
covers the newest information on the topic for the
period mostly between 2014 and 2019. Conformance to
regulations is paramount and hence, global regulatory
frameworks for probiotic yogurt and prebiotic and nonprebiotic
ingredients included in yogurt are reviewed.
The paper emphasizes the need for convincing clinical
trial outcomes that provide the dairy industry with
an opportunity to market products with substantiated
beneficial claims. The paper also discusses probiotic
strains in functional yogurt, which is required to have
population levels above the recommended therapeutic
minimum during shelf life. The multiprobiotic species
added to yogurt may present challenges relating to
methodological and analytical approaches needed to determine viability of each strain contained in such
yogurt. Hence, the review also presents the pros and
cons of the culture-dependent and culture-independent
approaches for the enumeration of probiotic cells in
yogurt. The review is arguably valuable to the dairy
industry, functional food developers, related scientists,
and researchers, as well as policy makers.
