ABSTRACT The global demand for functional food containing probiotics is rapidly increasing due to their well‐documented health benefits. However, maintaining the stability and viability of probiotics during processing, storage, and gastrointestinal transit (GIT) remains a persistent challenge. Encapsulation has been widely explored as a protective strategy to improve probiotic survival, yet most existing studies have focused either on single‐probiotic encapsulation systems or on co‐encapsulation of probiotics with one bioactive compound, leaving a limited understanding of systems that combine multiple bioactives. This review fills that gap by examining the emerging concept of multi‐bioactive co‐encapsulation, an innovative approach that integrates different bioactives within a single delivery system. It highlights how these bioactives can act synergistically to enhance probiotic survival with several mechanisms contributing to these effects. Among them, mitigation of oxidative stress, improving the structural integrity of the encapsulation matrix, and imparting a prebiotic functionality to promote the growth of probiotics are most prominent in ensuring the stability of probiotics. The in vitro GIT viability of probiotics was found to be enhanced due to improved adhesion capacity to the intestine and inhibition of pathogenic bacteria, allowing successful colonization in the gut. Despite these promising outcomes, current studies remain largely confined to in vitro evaluations, with limited molecular‐level understanding. Future investigations should therefore extend towards mechanistic clarification, clinical validation, and the practical application of advanced encapsulation technologies for the development of effective multi‐bioactive delivery systems.
Sandupama et al. (2026) studied this question.