Lactic acid bacteria for dairy fermentations: specialized starter cultures to improve dairy products.

CARMINATI, D.; GIRAFFA, G.; ZAGO, M.; BRIGGILER MARCÓ, M.; GUGLIELMOTTI D.M.; BINETTI, A. G.; REINHEIMER, J. A.

Biotechnology of lactic acid bacteria. Novel applications. 2nd Edition.

WILEY-BLACKWELL PUBLISHING, INC

Año: 2016;

Dairy starter cultures are actively growing cultures of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) used as primary function to drive the fermentation process in order to improve the overall quality of the fermented products. Even today, the availability of ?new? LAB strains to develop starter cultures with pro-technological functionalities are of great importance for companies that produce starter cultures as well as for the dairy industry, and efforts are still doing to isolate wild strains from natural sources to identify any potential new starter strain. Besides new strains to be used as primary starter cultures, a lot of attention is receiving the non-starter LAB (NSLAB) starter adjuncts (also defined as ?subsidiary? or ?complementary? cultures), used for purposes other than acid formation, which can bring several benefits to the technological, sensory, safety, and health-promoting aspects of fermented dairy products. To this regard, there is a growing need to identify new functional strains, new strategies to assure survival of these cultures, and different sources from which to isolate strains. Because the range of target functions and technological applications is wide, the selection and evaluation of potential candidates require a multistep approach. Applied research is still needed to better improve starter cultures in the existing production technology to obtain quantitative data which may yield precious information about the relationship between the dairy environments and bacterial functionality, thus contributing to optimal strain selection and to design appropriate starter formulations.