ABSTRACT
The trend of functional food and drinks has increased considerably during the last few years. The enrichment of food and drinks with bioactive ingredients such as probiotics is one of these concepts. By 2015, the functional food and drink segment is expected to reach US $ 130 billion. The share of probiotic food products is estimated to reach US $ 28.8 billion by 2015, which would imply a growth of US $ 12.9 billion since 2008 (Hernández-Rodríguez et al. 2014). All this current data shows the continuing high demand for probiotic products with a positive effect on the consumer’s health. To be effective, probiotics have to reach the human intestine in a high number of viable and active cells (Hörmannsperger et al. 2009). The required minimum concentration should be ~106-107 CFU/mL during the expected shelf life of the product (Krasaekoopt et al. 2003). Before the probiotic bacteria can reach their destination in the body in available form, a couple of hurdles have to be overcome, as schematically shown in Fig. 1 (Agrawal 2005, Burgain et al. 2011, Champagne et al. 2005, Heidebach et al. 2012, Krasaekoopt et al. 2003).
