One of the questions we are asked most often is: “Which exact probiotic strains are in your starter? Can you send me the strain numbers?”
If you have been reading books, blogs, or social media about probiotics, you have probably seen very specific strain codes recommended for sleep, mood, immunity, weight loss, and many other things. It is easy to get used to the idea that a “good” product must show a long list of strain numbers. So when you look at our starter cultures and do not see those codes, it can feel as if something is missing.
In reality, there are clear reasons why we do not list strain numbers on our products. None of these reasons means you are getting a weaker or lower-quality culture. In this article, we want to explain, in simple language, why we do not list strain numbers on our starters – and why this is completely fine for hight quality yogurt and kefir making at home.
First, our starters are sold as food cultures, not as capsules or medicines. Under current food regulations, there is no requirement to list individual strain numbers for cultures used to make yogurt and kefir. These cultures are meant to be added to milk to create a food, just as traditional starters have been used for generations. On a food label, the main legal priorities are safety, clear ingredient descriptions, and mandatory information such as allergen information, net weight, and storage instructions. Listing every laboratory code for every strain is not required for this type of food product. This style of labelling is more common for dietary supplements, which are sold and marketed differently.
The second reason is very practical. Once you add the starter to milk, the bacterial composition naturally changes. When you use a freeze-dried culture at home, you are not swallowing it directly from the sachet. You add it to milk, incubate it for several hours, sometimes drain it, and often re-culture it again and again. During this time, the bacteria in the starter grow and multiply. They interact with the naturally occurring microorganisms in the milk. They are also affected by your kitchen, your equipment, the temperature you choose, and the length of your fermentation.
Even if we printed a perfect laboratory list of strains on the box, the moment fermentation begins, your jar becomes a living ecosystem. It is no longer a fixed, controlled capsule. This is precisely how traditional yogurt, kefir and other fermented foods have always been made: they are living, changing foods, not static tablets. That is part of their charm and part of why they can be so helpful for the gut. It also means that a strain list on a label can give a false feeling of precision once the culture is actually used for home fermentation.
There is another important scientific point that often gets lost online. All probiotic strain effects are host-related. In simple words, the same strain can behave differently in different people. The same strain number might be very helpful for one person, have a mild effect on another, and do almost nothing noticeable in a third. This depends on the individual microbiome, diet, lifestyle, genetics, medication use and overall health.
So even if you know the exact strain code, there is no universal guarantee that “this strain works for everyone in the same way”. Real life is more complex than that. Your gut ecosystem is unique. A strain number is only one piece of a much bigger puzzle, not a magic key that unlocks perfect health.
When you look at the microbiome as a whole, another simple truth appears: variety is more important than a single hero strain. A healthy gut is usually diverse, with many different species and strains coexisting and interacting. In that sense, a varied diet with different fermented foods and fibres will usually do more for your microbiome than chasing one special strain. Variety in what you eat encourages variety in your microbiome. That diversity is one of the key signs of a resilient, healthy gut. A healthy microbiome resembles a forest, where many different plants coexist and support one another. No forest can survive if it is built around a single species. Without diversity, it becomes weak and easily damaged. The gut works in much the same way. When microbial diversity is lost, the system becomes unstable — a state scientists refer to as dysbiosis. You can’t build a healthy gut using a single strain.
A further reason we do not publish every strain code is that our blends are part of our know-how. Our goals are reliable fermentation, pleasant flavour, good texture and the ability to re-culture at home. Listing every strain in detail would make it much easier for others to copy that work. In a small, specialised niche like traditional starter cultures, protecting this knowledge is important if we want to keep offering these products long term.
Instead of publishing a highly technical list of codes, we focus on providing you with clear, practical information about how the culture behaves. We tell you whether a starter is mild or tangy, thick or drinkable, more like classic yogurt or more like kefir, and how it works in real kitchen conditions. For everyday use, this is usually much more useful than a line of letters and numbers, which, by themselves, do not tell you what your finished jar will actually be like.
There is also the question of expectations created online. It is very easy to find strong statements such as “you must use this exact strain number for sleep” or “only that strain fixes this condition”. Some of these claims come from small or early studies. Some are based on older books that are still repeated, and some are lifted straight from marketing material.
Real-life evidence is often much more complicated and less absolute than “one strain, one guarantee”. Because strain effects are host-related, a result observed in one group in a study does not mean every person who buys that strain will get the same result. Your microbiome is individual. Two people can eat the same yogurt and have different responses. This is normal.
Because of all this, we choose a cautious, food-first approach. We do not present our starters as medicines. We do not claim that one specific strain will fix one specific health problem. We do not support dramatic promises that lack strong, repeatable evidence. We see yogurt and kefir as traditional fermented foods. They can be a valuable part of a healthy diet, especially when made at home with good-quality ingredients. That is already a very good reason to make them, without turning them into miracle cures.
So if we are not focusing on strain-number marketing, what do we focus on? The answer is simple: we focus on what actually matters in your kitchen. We care about safety and quality, and we work with experienced laboratories that produce our cultures under controlled conditions. We care about reliability, so that the cultures ferment properly when you follow the instructions. We care about flavour and texture, so that you get a creamy, enjoyable yogurt or a tangy, refreshing kefir, depending on the starter you choose. And we care about staying close to traditional, time-tested styles of fermented milk.
When you choose a starter, we encourage you to think about style, texture, taste and routine rather than strain codes. Think about what you want: a thick, spoonable yogurt, a mild and creamy bowl, a tangy, drinkable kefir, or something in between. Decide whether you prefer a Bulgarian-style yogurt, a Greek-style texture, or a classic kefir that you can drink. Consider how much time you have and how easily you can fit the method into your daily life. These questions will have a much bigger impact on your daily health and enjoyment than whether the label lists “Lactobacillus something DSM 12345” or not.
People also ask if it is still safe if we do not list strain numbers. The answer is yes. Safety does not depend on printing codes on the box. It depends on using species that are well-known and widely used in food, producing them under hygienic, controlled conditions, storing and shipping them correctly, and following the preparation and storage instructions at home. That is where the real safety work happens, not in the line of text with a strain code.
Another common question is whether you can still get health benefits without knowing all the strain numbers. Most traditional fermented foods that people have eaten for centuries – yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut, kimchi, cheese and many others – never had strain numbers on their packaging. Yet they have been part of the diets of many healthy, long-lived populations. For many people today, the biggest benefit comes from eating less ultra-processed food and adding more real, fermented, nutrient-dense foods to their routine.
A simple daily habit of homemade yogurt or kefir, alongside a colourful and varied diet, can be more powerful than focusing on a single strain code. This is especially true when you remember that every strain and every gut are part of a unique host–microbe relationship, and that variety and balance are key.
If we had to summarise our position in one sentence, it would be this: we see our starter cultures as tools to make real, traditional food, not as pharmaceutical products where every strain number must be listed and marketed. We respect the science, we follow the regulations, and we are careful not to over-promise. At the same time, we truly believe in the value of homemade yogurt and kefir as part of a varied, balanced diet.