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The buzz about healthy gut bacteria keeps getting louder. While the main focus continues to be on probiotics, prebiotics — the food for beneficial bacteria — are gaining increased attention. Demand for prebiotic-containing products, such as health drinks, dairy, meat and bakery products, and infant food could drive the market to reach $7.8 billion by 2022, according to a Global Industry Analysts’ report. Meanwhile, the same firm predicts the probiotics market will exceed $63 billion that year.chelated zinc 12As for candy, healthy chocolate is still a relatively new concept, but it has been buoyed by research into cocoa polypwhat is ferrous fumarate and folic acid tablets used forhenols and increasing consumer interest. A key challenge for manufacturers is the perception that health benefits should not come from an otherwise indulgent food, but this perception is shifting and companies are exploring the potential of chocolate fortified with nutrients such as fiber, prferrous sulphate 305mgotein and calcium. In the gut health space, work to improve probiotics’ shelf life has led to the launch of several probiotic-containing chocolate brands that take the concept beyond health food. These include UK-based Ohso Good Chocolate, which has combined Belgnature made magnesium citrate softgelsian chocolate with probiotics. Prebiotics do not ferrous lactate absorptionface the same shelf-life issues, but one of the biggest barriers is a lack of consumer understanding of how prebiotics help improve gut health. Research suggests that by combining prebiotics with probiotics, the former could piggyback on probiotics’ acceptance in a number of applications, including chocolate.