Dairy-Free GoodBelly

Functional foods are still mostly a European concept, even though American firms have been slowly introducing them for years.

For years also describes how long I've been writing about them, with the best definition found in an article I posted more than two years ago, quoting "Taking Soy Protein beyond Milk," by Henk Hoogenkamp & Paul Evers of Netherlands' Alko Research.

Basically, functional drinks are defined as a concept that provides a health benefit beyond the basic nutritional content by virtue of their physiologically active added components. Yakult Japan is not only the pioneer of the probiotic functional drinks but also still the world leader of the distinctive ‘one-shot size’ drink format. It has taken a while, but in recent years a wave of me-too products has been introduced by giants like Yoplait, Danone and Nestle.

A soymilk industry veteran is bringing a new class of functional food to the states. From the press release:

NextFoods, the new functional food company formed by Organic and Natural Products industry pioneer Steve Demos (Founder and former President of WhiteWave, Inc., makers of Silk® soymilk) and seasoned industry and former WhiteWave veteran Todd Beckman, today announced a $16 million investment, led by Seattle-based venture capital firm Maveron LLC. Maveron, co-founded by Dan Levitan and Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, is investing in NextFoods and its new GoodBelly(TM) brand of probiotic fruit drinks ...

GoodBelly is the first fruit-based, dairy-free probiotic product of its kind in the United States. Licensed from Probi AB, a Swedish biotech company and a leading player in the field of probiotic research and development of effective and well-documented probiotics, the patented and proprietary probiotic Lp299v has been clinically tested and proven for 15 years to improve overall digestive regularity and promote immunity. With exclusive North American rights to Lp299v, NextFoods plans on continuing to work with Probi to expand the offerings in its NextFoods portfolio.

GoodBelly is currently available in two product lines – GoodBelly Probiotic Fruit Drink and GoodBelly Multi – and is distributed nationwide at 1,500 stores, including Whole Foods Market and grocery chains such as HEB, Publix, Wegmans and Giant Eagle.