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Where did Gefilus products come from?

Valio Gefilus is a highly successful product family launched in the 1990s in Finland. This article celebrates 20 years on the market, exploring why and how the Valio Gefilus product family was developed, how it became a commercial success, and its link to a transition in the European dairy market.

In the beginning there was a vision

In the 1980s, the consumption of traditional Finnish fermented milk products began to fall. At the start of the decade, Valio launched A-piimä (Acidophilus) fermented milk whose pleasant taste and healthy image made it very popular.

Valio R&D meanwhile envisioned a fermented milk product with scientifically proven beneficial health effects. Today, we use the term probiotic to describe the bacteria responsible for fermentation in just such a product, but at the time the word was unknown. In the mid-1980s, Valio R&D was running a "lactic acid bacteria project" seeking opportunities to develop new business based on Valio's expertise in lactic acid bacteria. And as part of that project, the company was also looking for opportunities to discover and research "functional" lactic acid bacteria. Dr. Kari Salminen headed up Valio R&D at that time, and was introduced to two American professors Sherwood Gorbach and Barry Goldin, who had isolated and patented Lactobacillus GG (today known as Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG (ATCC53103), a bacterial strain that in laboratory tests appeared to have beneficial health effects.

Product licensing and development

In late 1987, Valio signed a licensing agreement for the global commercial utilisation of Lactobacillus GG, gaining access to the bacterial strain and the rights to the professors' patents. This signalled the start of an intensive development phase at Valio.

The primary objectives were research on health effects in clinical tests, the development of lactic acid bacteria production at Valio, and the development of consumer products. The first Valio Gefilus product, a whey drink, was launched in Finland in March 1990.

So where did Gefilus come from?

The Valio Gefilus brand is an invented name, based first on the bacteria's working title, "GG", while the "filus" came from the last letters of Lactobacillus acidophilus bacteria. And so the brand became part of the history of the development of fermented milk products.

Similarly, Valio Gefilus and its marketing are a natural continuation of the fact that fermented milk products, especially yoghurt, have always been marketed specifically with health arguments. It should be noted that nowadays the use of health benefits in marketing is much more controlled than it was e.g. in the late 1960s when yogurts were launched onto the Finnish market.