Probiotics are a growing market in the United States and worldwide, and the global market value is projected to reach $77.09 billion by 2025. This is hardly a new trend, either. According to the 2021 National Health Interview Survey, 1.6% of U.S. adults were using probiotics in 2012. The number has grown steadily since, and the percentage exploded in May 2020 in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. A survey conducted by the National Marketing Institute reported that 61% of surveyed Americans were taking probiotic supplements each day. Naturally, such numbers make these supplements exciting business opportunities for many entrepreneurs.

Essentially, probiotics are good bacteria that, when consumed, can provide health benefits, such as combating bad bacteria or improving gut health and digestion to prevent conditions like constipation or diarrhea. They can occur naturally in fermented food, such as yogurt, or they can be taken as a dietary supplement. Probiotics can also help with certain skin conditions, reduce inflammation, fight urinary tract infections, and more. While they don't directly impact metabolism, it's suggested that some probiotic strains can help reduce body fat and contribute to weight loss.

If you're interested in starting a probiotics company, you'll need big data on your side. Data is arguably the most valuable asset for any modern business, but you'll need to be able to monetize it correctly to make full use of it. Here's how to go about it.

Data Discovery

The data discovery process will help you every step of the way when creating, maintaining, and expanding a probiotics company. What is data discovery, you ask? It's the collection of data from a variety of different sources in order to discover patterns and trends. It often involves integrating disparate, siloed systems into a single database. This allows for a far easier analytics process by which businesses can gain actionable insights from the data and improve business processes.

Put simply, without data discovery, it would be impossible to have effective business intelligence. Your probiotics business will be gathering data on market trends, customers, suppliers, your own production processes, and much more. Below are some of the main reasons you need data discovery.

Regulatory Compliance

You'll undoubtedly have some sensitive types of data to keep track of, such as customer information, that you won't want to fall into the wrong hands. With data discovery tools and analytics, you can easily categorize your data sets and apply access rules to all of them, ensuring that only authorized users can see them.

Constantly collecting data on market trends and updates on regulations will also ensure that all your products and product descriptions fall within the rules set by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Probiotics sold as dietary supplements, for example, aren't regulated by the FDA outside of the fact that they aren't allowed to make health claims on labels. A probiotic strain that's being marketed as medicine, however, will have to meet much stricter requirements. Having the right data at all times helps make sure you stay within these rules.

Product Development

Smart data discovery can even use machine learning algorithms to analyze data without human intervention in order to come up with hidden relationships and patterns. This can be great for product discovery and development as you work to deliver the best probiotic options.

For example, you may discover that your weight loss supplements are selling better than most of your other products. You may also find out that a large percentage of your customers are women nearing menopause age. In this case, developing a menopause probiotic for weight loss would be an excellent idea. Such a probiotic may be able to address perimenopause and menopause symptoms, such as hot flashes, as well as heart health, vaginal health, and weight loss.

Customer Retention

You can't have a business without customers, and data discovery can help you address customer issues in several ways. For starters, you can determine which products get returned the most to address customer issues with them. You can also use data collected via your sales and CRM systems to see how you're doing on customer retention and come up with new ways to connect with existing customers. Once you determine why some customers leave, you can start building a plan to keep your new and existing customers alike.