Our Story

Yoghurt of Youth started for a simple reason: I wanted this yoghurt to exist, and it didn't. Not in the UK, not anywhere I could find. So I learned to make it myself, and then decided other people should be able to have it too.

A science background, and a rabbit hole

My background is in physics. That training leaves you with a particular habit: when something interests you, you go to the source, read the actual research, and try to understand the mechanism rather than the marketing.

A few years ago, circumstances led me deep into the science of the gut microbiome, the vast community of bacteria that lives in the gut and behaves like an organ in its own right. The more I read, the more struck I was by how foundational it appears to be, and how much genuine, published research there is behind specific bacterial strains, in particular the strains of Lactobacillus reuteri our yoghurts are built around.

The thing that didn't exist

Here is what I found: if you wanted a fresh, live yoghurt made with specific, well-researched L. reuteri strains, at a genuinely high live-culture count, your options were essentially none. You could buy dried capsules sitting on a shelf. You could buy generic supermarket yoghurts with undefined cultures. Or, if you wanted the real thing, you could do what I ended up doing: spend time learning to efficiently ferment it yourself.

That struck me as a gap worth closing. The interest in gut health is huge and growing, the research on these strains is real and public, and yet the product itself simply wasn't available to anyone who didn't want to become an amateur fermenter first.

Made properly

So that is what Yoghurt of Youth is: the yoghurt I wished I could buy. Live and fresh, fermented in small batches with specific researched strains, chilled and delivered within days rather than dried into a capsule for a shelf. Lactose-free, with no added sweeteners. Made with the same attention to the science that sent me down this path in the first place.

Just as important to me is how we talk about it. The wellness world is full of overclaiming, of products promising to fix everything. I would rather do the opposite: explain the genuine research, and clarify where the science is strong and where it is still early. You'll see that throughout this site, on our theory of gut dysbiosis, our pages on the gut–skin and gut–hormone connections, and everywhere else. We tell you what the evidence shows, and where it doesn't yet.

Holding the standard

There is no shortage of gut health products. What there is a shortage of is precision. Most fermented products on the shelf will tell you they contain live cultures without telling you which ones, in what quantity, or on what evidence. We think that is the wrong way round, and we have built this business to do the opposite.

Every batch we make is fermented with a single, named, well-researched strain of L. reuteri. The fermentation is temperature-controlled and finished to a measured pH rather than a guess. The strains rotate on a defined cycle, so you know what you are receiving and why. And when we write about the science, we say plainly where the evidence is strong and where it is still early, because a claim you cannot support is worth nothing.

That is what we mean by holding the standard. Not the loudest claims, but the most careful product and the most sincere account of it.

Where gut health is going

We think the future of gut health belongs to fresh, single-strain fermentation. The clearest research in this field has always studied specific strains, and a ferment delivers them alive along with everything they produced while fermenting, which is something a capsule cannot do. We outline the full case in our comparison of capsules, traditional ferments and our yoghurt. We want to usher in that future.

- Zain, Founder

Yoghurt of Youth makes live fermented foods, not medicines. Nothing on this page is medical advice, or a claim that our products treat, cure or prevent any condition. If you have health concerns, please speak with a qualified healthcare professional.