Türkiye's First Local Probiotic Brand
Preobio Inc. began operations in 2020 to develop and market products containing probiotic, postbiotic, parabiotic, and yeast-type living and non-living microorganisms. Our company focuses on human and animal health, industrial applications, private label manufacturing, and the food sectors with its brands. Operating within the Health Sciences University - Teknopol Istanbul Health Technopark, Preobio Inc. is the first biotechnology company in Turkey to focus solely on living and non-living microorganisms. Preobio Inc. uses ATA-coded domestic isolates produced from Turkey's geography in the product groups it supplies. Encapsulation technology is applied in the production processes of these products in accordance with the World Health Organization's definition of probiotics.
What Are We Doing?
The growth momentum of the OTC (food supplement) market, which has a slightly older global presence, also manifested itself in our country during the pandemic. In response to this market need, we launched our first brand, Preobio, which includes food supplements, in 2021. Our products, which support the immune and digestive systems, are available as mixed products on pharmacy shelves. Probiotic products, combining numerous strains and consuming them in high quantities and in a form that can reach the intestines alive, offer real benefits. Undoubtedly, our extensive microorganism library, obtained through the domestic probiotic project, has been instrumental in developing products with these characteristics. The primary reason for complaints about other probiotic products was the cost of importing each bacterial strain from different countries/manufacturers and the resulting stability issues when combined. Furthermore, we now know that isolating the probiotics you consume from your local region directly impacts the effectiveness of that product. With the domestic probiotic project, we have also had the opportunity to reconnect with the micro-workers we have been living in for thousands of years.
Following the OTC market, we launched our second brand in 2022, Preobio Advance, for which we provide industrial raw materials for milk and dairy products. Yogurt, a product of Anatolian geography, is a gift from our ancestors that we can call the secret to a healthy and long life. Although the ready-made yogurt industry has existed in our country for nearly 60 years, until now, we have always imported the starter cultures used in industrial yogurt production. Considering that ready-made yogurt consumption is 91%, we see a strategic market here. Believing that nature abhors a vacuum, we launched our first domestically produced probiotic yogurt starter culture after a 14-month R&D process, and today, we ferment approximately 600 tons of yogurt per month. With our Preobio Advance brand, which we expect to experience the fastest growth this year, we have established our domestic production capacity in a strategic area.
As food safety is increasingly being addressed globally, livestock farming has become a critical area for our country. Despite our ever-increasing population due to births and migration, poor practices in animal husbandry have led to inefficiency in the sector and increasing economic losses. With our Preobio Farm brand, which we launched in the final months of last year, we are focusing on animal health. With the probiotic products we developed to reduce the calf loss rate in our country, which is around 20% (an annual economic loss of approximately 12 billion TL), to the global standard of 3%, we have entered another strategic sector in our country. We now know, based on the literature and our own clinical studies, that probiotics, along with preventive medicine therapies, can address chronic animal health problems in this area.
Hasan Tahsin KALBİŞEN
General Manager - Preobio Arge Ticaret A.Ş.