Danone Enters Major Probiotic Deal

In finalizing an agreement to expand the market for ProViva probiotic fruit drinks in Europe, the probiotic biotech company Probi (Lund, Sweden) has received a down payment of 10 million Swedish Krona ($1,491,910) from the dairy company Skånemejerier (Malmö, Sweden), which relinquished 51% of ProViva AB shares to the health foods company Danone (Paris). The market research firm Canadean (Basingstoke, UK) released this news on Monday.

Having seen success with the probiotic fruit drinks in Sweden, Probi and Danone (Paris) signed an agreement this July to give Danone exclusive rights to use the Lp299v probiotic technology to expand the beverage’s presence throughout Europe.

“Probi’s international revenue potential from ProViva is significantly higher than the revenue from ProViva in Sweden,” said Michael Oredsson, CEO of Probi. “Probi and Danone have a common interest in making ProViva an international success and we are already cooperating on the health claim application for Lp299v, the probiotic strain in ProViva.”