Australia's Unistraw International has granted Denmark's Danisco worldwide exclusivity for the sales and marketing of its internationally-patented straw concept for use with Howaru premium probiotics following its global agreement announced recently with Tetra Pak.

This award-winning concept from Unistraw will allow consumers to sip a probiotic daily dose with any of their favourite beverages.

Currently, probiotic beverages are chilled dairy-based drinks as well as smoothies or fruit juices. The development of the probiotic straw opens a new option for beverage and milk manufacturers as it offers longer shelf life.

An entrant in the Dairy Innovation Awards 2008, the Unistraw on-pack straw delivery system will be available globally by the middle of 2009.

Danisco offers one of the most extensive ranges of probiotic bacteria under the registered trademark Howaru.

Backed by numerous clinical studies, Howaru probiotics have shown beneficial effects in the areas of gastrointestinal health, wellbeing, immune system modulation and improvement of natural defenses.

More recent scientific evidence has demonstrated the ability of Howaru probiotics to maintain respiratory health in children.

"We are looking forward to launching the Howaru probiotic Straws to provide our beverage and milk customers with a new solution addressing customer's demands on gut health and improvement of natural defenses," said Fabienne Saadane-Oaks, president, Danisco BioActives in a statement.

"The Howaru straws are proving to be a convenient dry format, ideal for ensuring the delivery of a highly stable dose of probiotic live bacteria, without requiring chilled storage or distribution," she added.

Tim York, managing director, Unistraw, said, ''We developed the new system based on increasing consumer demand for convenience, health and well-being, choice and taste – in a format that's compatible with busy and increasingly mobile lifestyles.

Unistraw recently joined forces with the leading packaging manufacturer Tetra Pak to introduce the new on-pack probiotic straw on its aseptic packages.

The probiotics in the straw are stored in the form of dry, stable UniBeads which are held in place by filters at both ends of the straw and dissolve as liquid is sipped through it.

Unistraw on-pack straw delivery system is compatible with most Tetra Brik Aseptic individual portion pack drink cartons and allows producers to offer consumers long-life products with probiotics.

Tetra Pak may not have to not make any additional investments but may have to make some minor modifications to use the Tetra Pak straw applicators.

Probiotics, being a recyclable straw can also be used to add flavour, energy, vitamins and nutrition to liquid sipped through it and using this procedure, probiotic beverages do not require refrigeration and will have a shelf life of up to 12 months. Unistraw also said that products using the straw do not require refrigeration during transportation and storage, reducing producer expenses as a result.

Under the current agreement, Tetra Pak will sell the Unistraw design with its carton packaging solutions and also jointly market the product.

According to Euromonitor, the global market for probiotic dairy drinks accounted for $10.2 billion in 2007. Asia and Europe are leading, with respectively 54 per cent and 30 per cent of the current market.

With $310 million, North America is currently a smaller but fast-growing market with a forecasted 14 per cent annual growth for the next three years.

Overall, the market for probiotic beverages is expected to grow by a double digit until 2010.

Danisco is one of the world's leading producers of food ingredients, enzymes and bio-based solutions with 9,500 employees in 47 countries. Danisco ingredients are used in about every second ice cream and cheese, every third box of detergent and every fourth loaf of bread produced globally.

Tetra Pak is a multinational food processing and packaging company of Swedish origin. It was founded in 1951 in Lund, Sweden by Ruben Rausing. It was Erik Wallenberg who invented the tetrahedral package, today known as Tetra Classic. Its unique innovations have changed the way food is packaged and distributed around the world.

The company is part of the Tetra Laval group which also includes 'Sidel' who specialise in PET bottles and 'DeLaval', a producer of dairy farming machinery and food processing equipment.

Today the company supplies hundreds of different types of carton packaging that suits the needs of every customer.