Why We Add Probiotics to Our Food
Why probiotics? Our probiotics are not the same as ones you’d buy at the store for yourself or your pets for gut health. Each strain in our mixture has been chosen specifically to perform a unique “job” in controlling or eliminating pathogens. Some produce natural antimicrobial compounds, others bind to receptors on pathogens and inactivate them, and overall they outcompete and eliminate bad bacteria.
The role of probiotics in our overall safety approach: We’ve conducted extensive research & testing with microbiologists & researchers to have confidence that this technology performs in our products.
This is just one aspect of our robust, ever-evolving food safety program. We source the highest quality USDA-inspected meat to ensure our ingredients start off as clean as possible. We manufacture in a USDA kitchen with strict cleaning & sanitation protocols, including regularly testing our production environment for pathogens and using ATP tests to monitor cleanliness.
Finally, each batch of our product is always tested for pathogens before shipping and multiple samples are collected from each batch to ensure we have a high statistical confidence in our results.
Here at Viva, we believe in making each batch of our food better than the last, which means we’re always looking at the latest research & discoveries to evolve our approach to food safety and provide higher quality products for your pets.
Want to learn more? Watch the videos below to learn more about our food safety approach, how these probiotics work, and to see how we worked with researchers to test this technology!
FAQ
How do you know this works?
We worked with researchers to conduct validation studies on pathogens of concern like Salmonella spp., Shiga toxin-producing E.coli, and Listeria monocytogenes. A validation study involves multiple trials of inoculating our own product samples with pathogens (ex. Salmonella) in a lab, adding the probiotics, and testing the sample to make sure pathogens were no longer detectable.
Validation studies are very important—oftentimes, companies rely on just using a technology in their plant and their regular finished product testing to decide if something works or not. If all the finished product test results are coming back clean, then it must mean it works! However, if there weren’t pathogens in the product you sampled to begin with or your sampling just happened to miss a zone - you won’t know if the “negative” result actually means what you’re using is effective or if you were just “lucky”. That’s why validation studies where you can apply specific treatments and have control groups are a very important part of evaluating any pathogen mitigation technology.
Why don’t I see probiotics listed on my package’s ingredients label?
Our use of probiotics is classified as a processing aid under regulatory guidelines so it is not required to be listed in our ingredients. However, we are working on updating our package labels so that the probiotic addition will be reflected on our ingredients list in the future! The ingredients list on our website is fully up to date.
What strains are in the probiotics you use?
Our probiotic mixture contains Lactobacillus acidophilus, Lactobacillus casei, Bifidobacterium animalis, and Lactobacillus reuteri.
Should I stop or replace the probiotics I’m adding for my pet?
Other probiotic products serve a different purpose depending on the strains & the blend, so you are welcome to continue using other products alongside our food. Our strains are specifically selected for pathogen elimination. Additionally, our probiotic strains & other strains that are FDA-approved are well tolerated by pets even in higher quantities & when used together.
How are your probiotics different from fermentation? Will the food taste or smell different?
Fermentation is the process by which carbohydrates are broken down for energy without oxygen (anaerobically). From a scientific perspective, the probiotics in our products undergo fermentation since that is how these good bacteria break down and use energy. However, our process is very different from the fermentation used to produce familiar foods like yogurt, kimchi, kombucha, or kefir.
The probiotics we’re adding have been carefully selected to not produce any detectable changes in the smell, taste, or texture of the food. For example, our probiotics do not contain any strains traditionally used in fermentation that would produce noticeable amounts of gas, acid, or smells. They are specifically selected for their pathogen eliminating capabilities and are different from the strains used in making fermented foods. Our use of probiotics also does not involve adding any dairy or sugar in our recipes that “feed” the probiotics.
Our testing has shown that the batches made with probiotics look, smell, and taste the same as before!
Does the food need to be consumed for the probiotics to be effective?
Unlike store-bought probiotic supplements, the probiotics work in the food itself and do not rely on being within the digestive system to be activated. By the time you get your food, the probiotics have done their job!
The reality is that ‘probiotics’ are a bit of a misleading name for this technology, since most ‘probiotics’ that we as consumers think about are designed to be consumed to be effective. In reality, ‘probiotics’ refers to any live organisms that provide a health benefit—and in this case they are just good bacteria that are crowding out any potential bad bacteria in the food before it’s ingested.