Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of prohibiting the use of the term probiotic in promotional material on public awareness of how to maintain good gut health.

Probiotic is a term commonly used to describe the effect of one or more strains of live bacteria used in food and food supplements. The Department has not made any assessment of the impact of prohibiting the use of the term probiotic.

The Department’s view is that the term probiotic would be considered a health claim. A health claim is any claim that states, suggests, or implies that health benefits can result from consuming a given food. Regulations governing the use of nutrition and health claims on foods require health claims to be authorised before they can be used on food or in a commercial context. The authorisation process involves scientific assessment of substantiating evidence. These regulations are in place to protect consumers from being misled by ensuring any health claims made are backed by robust scientific evidence.

The term probiotic would only be permitted as a health claim if a health claim is authorised for a specific strain of live bacteria. There are currently no such authorised health claims. The established process for authorising health claims allows industry to submit an application for a new health claim, and should they be authorised for a strain of live bacteria, then it could be possible to use the term probiotic.