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Fermentation has the potential to power ‘high value nutrition’

Fermentation is key to unlocking significant nutraceutical opportunities, including advancing biotics from live cultures to postbiotic metabolites, says one strategist.

As the narrative around ultra-processed foods (UPFs) shifts to more nuanced, data-based classification, it is creating an opportunity for the industry to show that processing can be positive. In this context, fermentation has been tipped as a clean production technique that has the potential to restore trust whilst powering healthy innovation, according to Marit Veenstra, brand and innovation strategist at the Healthy Marketing Team (HMT).

Fermentation: Old technology, new opportunities

“Fermentation is one of the oldest technologies for preserving foods but it’s also one of today’s biggest opportunities. It connects with the consumer, industry and government response to the UPF crisis, which is to go back to real, simple, and authentic foods,” she told this publication.

Veenstra dubs fermentation as the original “processing with purpose”, resulting in food that “tastes real, digests naturally, and stays stable without the baddies”.

“Fermentation has the power to unlock what’s already there. It converts under-utilised compounds into bioactive ones, improving digestibility, bioavailability, flavour, and functionality, while reducing waste and anti-nutrients. In short it has the potential to create high-value nutrition,” she said.

The evolution of fermentation

In recent history, fermentation-based new product development (NPD) has, broadly speaking, gone in two directions, according to Veenstra. In the 1990s, manufacturers such as Danone and Yakult drove a “biotics boom”, educating consumers about good and bad bacteria, gut flora, and the microbiome, through probiotic yoghurts and drinks.

“This was where fermentation became a functional story, focused on benefits and claims, but not really on the culture or craft of the fermentation itself,” said Veenstra.

The other direction was “lifestyle fermentation”, a hipster trend that saw consumers rediscovering fermented foods as living, authentic and real, through products such as kombucha, kimchi, sourdough, and kefir. However, that trend was niche, premium, and too “craft” for the mass market, according to Veenstra.

The next step is using fermentation as a next-generation technology to help the industry create future-proof foods – and that is where we are today, she said.

Future fermentation opportunities

Healthy Marketing Team has identified three main opportunities for fermentation-based NPD:

Opportunity #1: Leveraging hidden nutritional assets

“Leverage the hidden nutritional assets of fermentation to create simple, real-food products with natural taste, texture, and easy-to-understand benefits, without the baddies,” said Veenstra. “This is about promoting the intrinsic goodness.”

Products that align with this approach include Siggi’s Icelandic yoghurt, organic sourdough bread brand SlooOW, and fermented vegetable brand Symplicity, which is using lacto-fermentation to create meat-free burgers, sausages, and ‘nduja, a spicy Italian meat paste.

Opportunity #2: Creating a new segment in biotics

This opportunity is about advancing biotics beyond probiotics to fermentates, to unlock new health benefits and a system-level approach to the microbiome, said Veenstra.

“The next wave is postbiotic- and metabolite-led: defined, stable, benefit-specific compounds produced through fermentation. It will be less about ‘adding bacteria’ and more about delivering outcomes, with better consistency and stability, clearer mechanisms, and fewer compliance issues,” she explained.

It is early days for postbiotics, but one product example is ReFerm by Nordic Rebalance. This Swedish-Danish life science company uses a proprietary fermentation technology to transform Swedish oats into a concentrated postbiotic ingredient that is said to strengthen the gut barrier and reduce inflammation. Another is Gaia Herbs’ Sauerkraut Postbiotic, which claims to support a healthy gut and immune system.

Opportunity #3: New low impact, high nutrition ingredients

The third opportunity identified by HMT is that of creating “future-proof foods” by substituting conventional ingredients with low-impact, high-nutrition, precision fermentation-derived alternatives.

Examples of this approach include Nukoko, which is using precision fermentation to transform fava beans into chocolate, and Remilk, whose precision fermentation derived milk proteins enable the production of dairy products without the cows.

Here, however, Veenstra believes there is a consumer education job to be done.

“This story is more difficult to tell. Even though the outcome is real food, it is high tech and most of it starts in the lab. It will take many years for consumers to understand and accept that.”