IN Brief:
- Tate & Lyle and APC Microbiome Ireland have developed the Synbiotic Potential Score for evaluating probiotic and prebiotic combinations.
- The tool is designed to compare how probiotic strains respond to specific fibres.
- The framework could shorten development work for functional foods, beverages, and supplements built around gut-health formulations.
Tate & Lyle and APC Microbiome Ireland have developed the Synbiotic Potential Score, a framework designed to evaluate how probiotic strains interact with specific prebiotic fibres.
The tool gives development teams a structured way to compare combinations earlier in the formulation process, helping identify pairings with stronger potential before more extensive testing, stability work, scale-up, and validation. It is intended for synbiotic food, beverage, and supplement development, where gut-health products increasingly need stronger technical foundations.
Synbiotics combine probiotics, which are live microorganisms, with prebiotics, which are substrates used by beneficial microbes. The pairing is not interchangeable. A probiotic strain may respond strongly to one fibre and weakly to another, while a fibre that performs in one matrix may behave differently in another formulation, processing route, or storage condition.
The Synbiotic Potential Score is designed to reduce that uncertainty by comparing candidate combinations in a more systematic way. By narrowing the field before commercial formulation begins, manufacturers can reduce trial work and focus application testing on combinations with a stronger scientific basis.
Functional food development has become more demanding as gut health, immunity, metabolic health, and satiety move from broad wellness language into more specific product claims and consumer expectations. Ingredients must retain functionality through processing, remain stable across shelf life, fit sensory requirements, and meet regulatory standards around claims and substantiation.
Probiotic and prebiotic combinations add further complexity. Probiotic strains can be sensitive to heat, acidity, water activity, oxygen, and storage conditions, while prebiotic fibres can influence viscosity, sweetness, mouthfeel, tolerance, and process behaviour. Combining the two can create valuable functionality, but it can also introduce formulation problems if strain-fibre interactions are poorly understood.
The framework reflects a wider shift towards data-led ingredient development. ABF Ingredients’ investment in Ohly’s Wisconsin site shows how capacity, application knowledge, and technical ingredient supply are becoming more strategic to manufacturers developing complex food systems. In functional foods, evidence and formulation support are now part of the ingredient offer, not simply after-sales support.
Fibre is central to that shift. Prebiotic fibres are used across dairy alternatives, beverages, bakery, snacks, bars, cereals, and supplements, where they can contribute to fibre enrichment, texture, sugar reduction, calorie reduction, and microbiome-related functionality. Stronger evidence around how those fibres work with specific probiotic strains could make synbiotic product design more precise.
The manufacturing stage will still decide whether a promising combination becomes a viable product. A synbiotic pairing that performs well during screening has to survive heat treatment, fermentation, extrusion, chilled storage, ambient distribution, or other process conditions depending on the format. The final product must also meet taste, texture, cost, and shelf-life requirements.
Regulatory expectations are another constraint. Gut-health claims remain closely scrutinised, and weakly substantiated products can damage confidence in the wider category. A more structured approach to combination selection can support better formulation discipline, although it does not remove the need for clinical evidence, claims review, and market-specific compliance work.
The Synbiotic Potential Score gives manufacturers a way to reduce early-stage guesswork and bring more order to synbiotic development. Its value will depend on how easily it integrates into commercial projects and how well the selected combinations perform once they move into real food and beverage systems. Stronger screening does not replace application testing, but it can make that testing more focused and more productive.
