New probiotics plant unveiled


SHINY AND NEW—Yordan and Natasha Trenev, owners of Natren Probiotics, at the June 21 ribbon cutting for their company’s new manufacturing plant, a state-of-the-art, 36,000-square-foot facility in Thousand Oaks. DIANNE AVERY/Acorn Newspapers

SHINY AND NEW—Yordan and Natasha Trenev, owners of Natren Probiotics, at the June 21 ribbon cutting for their company’s new manufacturing plant, a state-of-the-art, 36,000-square-foot facility in Thousand Oaks. DIANNE AVERY/Acorn Newspapers

Natren Probiotics hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony June 21 to unveil their new, state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Thousand Oaks.

Thousand Oaks city officials, representatives from the medical industry and local retailers attended. Councilmember Claudia Bill-de la Peña presented a certificate of appreciation to Natren founders and principals Natasha and Yordan Trenev.

Established in 1982 by the Trenevs, developmental scientists, Natren has become the pioneering leader within the field of probiotics, the company said.

Natasha Trenev introduced the word “probiotic” as a dietary supplement category in the 1980s.

The newly enlarged 36,000-square-foot manufacturing plant will serve as the exclusive manufacturing home for Natren’s probiotics, providing the company’s proprietary full-culture and freeze-drying procedure that preserves and protects the strains of bacteria that make up Natren’s probiotic products.

The manufacturing facility was six years in the planning.

 

 

By creating its own cultures, Natren takes control over the probiotics and ensuring that consumers receive the highest possible quality and most effective strains. Probiotics are live microorganisms that are commonly referred to as healthy bacteria that function to help maintain the natural balance of microorganisms in the intestine.

The company says its method of fermenting, processing, encapsulating storing and shipping is unique in the market.

For 15 generations, Natasha Trenev’s family has worked with probiotics-infused yogurt. When Trenev moved from Europe to America nearly 60 years ago, she helped introduce the probiotics health category to the U.S. through the line of yogurt products.

After graduating from UCLA, Trenev joined the family business full time, where she helped develop honey-sweetened and fruit-flavored custom probiotic yogurts with rich bacterial strains.

Her family’s business marketed its yogurt product with good bacteria to health-food stores. This led to Trenev developing the first probiotic supplement, which ultimately resulted in her founding Natren together with her husband. For more information, go to natren.com.