Functional Dairy Foods Concepts and Applications

Though in our country consumption of certain fermented milk products, known for their therapeutic qualities is an age old practice, yet in last few years there has been a paradigm shift in dairy and food processing sector towards "functional foods". In contrast to many other markets, the major format for functional ingredient has been probiotic as food supplements, rather than the most popular formats-spoonable and drinkable dairy foods. Probiotic supplements for example, account for 49 per cent of sales with foods and beverages at only four per cent. Globally, food and beverages account for 56 per cent of probiotic sales.