The potential for whey based encapsulation systems to protect bioactives in the digestive tract has largely been evaluated in vitro. The aim of this study was to examine the release of riboflavin from whey microbeads in vitro and in vivo. Riboflavin was used as a model bioactive for encapsulation, as it is a stable, low molecular weight compound which can be recovered from digested microbeads and also detected in plasma samples. Release of riboflavin from whey protein microbeads subjected to in vitro gastric digestion was rapid. To limit the release of riboflavin, microbeads were convection dried at 30 °C. The effect of temperature, pH and simulated gastric salts on the release of riboflavin from the dried beads was examined. Dried microbeads underwent swelling at gastric and intestinal pH resulting in the release of 58 % and 34 % of riboflavin respectively in the first hour. Drying significantly decreased the rate of riboflavin release in vitro, the release rate constant (k) decreased from 0.1 min-1 to 0.016 min-1 for dry microbeads. The in vivo study was conducted by feeding dry microbeads to piglets via oral gavage; microbeads were recovered 1, 3, 6 and 8.5 hours after consumption. Microbeads showed good resistance to gastrointestinal degradation as microbeads recovered from the colon 8.5 hours after ingestion were only partially degraded. This study showed that dried whey microbeads have potential as an encapsulation system for oral delivery of bioactives to the intestine.