Wilmington, DE—DuPont Nutrition & Biosciences has written and published a paper exploring the importance and advantages of third-party evaluations of probiotic products, which was published inFrontiers in Microbiology.The final paper encourages manufacturers to implement quality control programs and product design to ensure that products meet their label claims until the end of their shelf life, according to a press release.

The research examines third-party certification, the process of setting standards for identity, purity, and quantification of probiotics, and emerging methodologies for quality assessment, the release says. Experts believe that whole genome sequencing, digital PCR, and flow cytometry will play important roles in these processes in the future.

Key topics covered include:
  • Third-party verification, certification, and qualification
  • Quality standards
  • Probiotic product labels
  • Identity
  • Quantification
  • Single vs. multiple strains
  • Purity
Buffy Stahl, global business development leader at DuPont and co-author of the paper, said in the release: “As the global probiotics market gains popularity and the number of products on the shelves increase, it becomes increasingly difficult for consumers to distinguish between low-quality and high-quality products. The adoption of third-party evaluations to certify probiotic quality and label accuracy can minimize ambiguity of product performance, which threatens the trust consumers and healthcare providers have in probiotic products.”

Stahl added, “We believe the time is now for the industry to voluntarily improve transparency, and each company in the supply chain needs to hold themselves accountable to delivering a quality product consumers can trust.”