ABSTRACT
Since the beginning of their placement on the market, in the mid 1990s, functional foods have undergone a very important expansion driven by consumer demands and a heightened awareness of the link between health, nutrition, and diet. Functional foods are foods that claim to promote human health beyond nutritional effects. The global market of functional foods was estimated at nearly 61 billion $US in 2004 (Benkouider, 2004). In Europe this market has increased from 4-8 billion $US in 2000, depending on which de nition of functional foods is considered, to about 15 billion $US in 2006 (Kotilainen et al., 2006; Menrad, 2003). Functional foods containing probiotics constitute a large segment of this market representing more than 1.4 billion euros in Western Europe (Saxelin, 2008). Probiotics are de ned as “live microorganisms which when consumed in adequate numbers confer a health bene t on the host” (FAO/WHO, 2001). The success of probiotic foods is closely related to the growing number of scienti c studies supporting the bene cial effects of speci c probiotic microorganisms in sustaining gut health, alleviation of allergic disease, and lactose intolerance as well as for treatments of some diarrhea (Gueimonde and Salminen, 2005).
