The food maker focusing on dairy products (including yogurt-like drink) and ramen invested 20 billion won to build the plant which will produce powder-type probiotics, not a dairy product such as fermented milk.
AKorea Yakult official said, “The plant is the first of its kind in Korea which has an integrated system ranging from production to commercialization of powder-type probiotics.” It plans to complete R&D on new powder-type probiotics products within this year and kick-start full-scale production from early next year.
Korea Yakult joined the powder-type probiotics market since this area is growing at a rapid pace recently. The size of the probiotics market grew to 69 billion won last year, up 35 percent from 51.8 billion won in 2012, and is forecast to grow more than 20 percent this year.The company plans to differentiate itself from others by focusing on high-functional products.