Section 2 Food Preservation

C.A. CAMPOS; GLIEMMO, M. F.; CASTRO, MARCELA P.

Microbial Food Safety and Preservation Techniques

CRC Press

Año: 2014;

Yeasts are no significant microorganisms from the point of view of public health. But they play an important role as spoilage microorganisms for foods with low pH, intermediate water activity and containing preservatives such as drinks, salad dressings, jams, among others. Principal spoilage effects are discoloration, gas and off flavor production. These changes caused significant economic losses. However, they remained unreported due to commercial confidentiality. In particularly, only a small group of ten species of yeasts are the main food spoilers, they are: Brettanomyces bruxellensis, Issatchenkia orientalis, Debaryomyces hansenii, Kloeckera apiculata, Pichia membranifaciens, Zygosaccharomyces bailii, bisporus, rouxii, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Schizosaccharomyces pombe and Candida holmii. All of them are resistant to stress factors since they possess mechanisms of resistance. The objective of this chapter is to review the bibliography concerning the strategies to control the growth of spoilage yeasts in foods. With special emphasis it will be analyzed the effect of environmental factors, components of food and the effect of interaction between them on the growth of yeasts. It will also be explored the application of mathematical models to predict yeast growth/inhibition. This information will help to choose the stress factors that assure the control of spoilage yeast in foods, aiding to improve the quality of foods.