LacVital

LacVital is a German brand of colostrum-based health and personal-care products made by Colostrum BioTec GmbH in Königsbrunn, a town near Augsburg. Colostrum, the first milk a mammal produces after giving birth, is the common thread through the whole range: the company uses bovine colostrum in food supplements sold as a liquid serum and as capsules, and in a smaller line of skin, hair and intimate-care products. LacVital dates its work with colostrum to 1997 [4].

The brand is built around pharmacy distribution, and its German-language pages carry the line "Colostrum in Apotheken-Qualität", or colostrum in pharmacy quality. It remains active, selling through its own online shop and through pharmacies, with a website maintained in German and English.

According to the company, LacVital has been developing and producing concentrated colostrum products for pharmacies since 1997, and it describes itself as one of the pioneers of modern colostrum processing [4]. Its own account of its beginnings rests mainly on that date and on one of its founders: Dr. Dr. med. Franz Starflinger, a physician who, the company says, has long used colostrum in his gynaecology practice, the GYN Centre Mühldorf. He is described as "one of the founders", which implies that others were involved; they are not named publicly.

The company frames its origins less around people than around the raw material itself. Its website introduces colostrum as "nature's oldest recipe", as old as motherhood, and argues that its effects on physical and mental performance were noticed long before modern science took an interest. That idea, of an old substance handled with modern methods, runs through almost everything the brand says about itself.

Beyond its 1997 start, LacVital publishes few dated milestones of its own. Its corporate pages stress continuity instead: the company says that for more than 25 years its expertise and product quality have persuaded a steadily growing network of pharmacies to recommend its first-milk products.

A larger part of the brand's storytelling concerns the history of colostrum in general. On its website, LacVital traces the substance through several cultures. It says colostrum was taken in India more than a thousand years ago as a liquid food for physical and mental well-being, and that in ancient Egypt it was regarded as a gift from the sun god Re, reserved for pharaohs and high priests. In India today, the company adds, first milk is reserved for the wealthy. In ancient Greece, by the company's account, athletes ate it with their food to improve performance, and during the American Civil War it was used as a "natural antibiotic" [6].

The German chapter of this narrative centres on Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland, a physician who treated Goethe and Schiller. According to LacVital, Hufeland described at the end of the 18th century how colostrum differed from ordinary breast milk, noted its effect on the growth of newborn calves and prescribed it to his patients. The company then points to 1955, when a publication on "immune milk" as a food supplement for people with rheumatoid arthritis renewed research interest in colostrum's components. In LacVital's telling, that research found that young mammals fed by their mothers were less likely to suffer from allergies and infections, and that colostrum was rediscovered in America in the same year as an anti-inflammatory. The brand presents these episodes as background to its products; they are its own retelling rather than a documented company history.

LacVital is a brand of Colostrum BioTec GmbH, a company registered with the court in Augsburg and based in Königsbrunn, where Stefan Müller serves as managing director [8]. Colostrum BioTec markets its concentrated colostrum products for immune support and skin care under the LacVital name [11].

The two names are used almost interchangeably. On its English-language site the company calls LacVital "an EU-approved company and producer of colostrum products", while customer-service details point to Colostrum BioTec's own website. No sister brands are documented.

LacVital's central idea is that colostrum should be preserved rather than improved. On its production page the company puts it plainly: "Nature is perfect. We cannot make it better. We preserve it!" [7] Its stated principle, "quality before quantity", applies first of all to the colostrum extract that forms the basis of every product. On its homepage the company sums up its case in three points: experience since 1997, a production method it says preserves more nutrients, and better absorption with a greater effect. It also stresses that its products come "directly from the manufacturer", and its own wording is careful in one respect: a line on its history page states that colostrum "is not a miracle cure".

The company explains its focus on cow's colostrum with a simple argument. A calf, unlike a human baby, is born without its own immune protection, so the first milk a cow gives in the days after calving is especially rich in antibodies. LacVital says the key components of bovine colostrum are almost identical to those in human colostrum, but present in larger and more concentrated amounts. Among them it lists immune factors, vitamins, minerals, trace elements, amino acids and growth factors.

Sourcing is a large part of the brand's positioning. The company says it uses only colostrum from registered cows on controlled farms in Germany and Austria, and that the raw colostrum is checked for residues and impurities before it is released for production. It is collected within 24 hours of calving from what the brand calls registered "grass cows", and only after the calf has been fully fed [11]. LacVital also takes up an obvious ethical question, whether calves go short, and answers that the calf is sufficiently supplied and that only surplus first milk is used [7].

Processing follows the same logic. According to the company, the colostrum is cleaned of fat, casein (the main milk protein) and germs, then cold sterile-filtered without added chemical agents. LacVital describes this cold, nutrient-preserving method as fundamentally different from conventional production. Manufacturing takes place at the company's own facility in Königsbrunn, which it says meets the requirements of the HACCP system, a widely used framework for food-safety and hygiene management.

The brand also points to links with academic research. It says it has long been in close contact and exchange with research institutions such as the Universities of Cologne and London [4]. The wording describes an ongoing dialogue rather than a formal research partnership, and no joint studies are named. The homepage additionally quotes a Dr. Rainer Krapf on the role of immunoglobulins, a type of antibody, and of growth factors in bovine colostrum.

Every LacVital product contains bovine colostrum, which the company treats as its single defining ingredient. The range falls into three groups.

The core of the business is supplements. Colostrum Serum is the liquid, largely natural form, while capsules contain the gently processed dry powder. The company groups the two as "Colostrum Serum & Sticks" and presents them under the heading of health and well-being.

The intimate-care line is built around the FEM Intimate Wash Lotion, which combines purified colostrum serum with plant extracts, alongside a restorative care milk [9]. LacVital says colostrum's composition makes it suitable for caring for irritated mucous membranes and for preventive support against vaginal infections; these are the company's own descriptions of the products.

The body-care line, sold under the Derm name, covers what the brand calls care "for hair to face and body to feet", grouped on its website under the heading "Repair and Beauty". It includes the Derm Face Cream, which pairs colostrum serum with jojoba oil, orange oil, Dead Sea salt minerals, lavender flower oil and rosemary extract; the Derm Skin Cream; and the Derm Hair Shampoo. The company describes the shampoo as free of soap and alkali and, because of its natural ingredients, also suitable for people with allergies [5].

No third-party certifications are documented for the range.

LacVital is active. Its bilingual website was updated in April 2026, and both its online shop and pharmacy ordering are in operation. The company sells directly through that shop and through pharmacies, where products can be ordered for delivery or collection [5]. A pharmacy finder on its website points customers to stockists.