The probiotic foods market is growing exponentially; however, probiotics’ survivability and interaction with product attributes pose major challenges. A previous study of our lab developed a spray-dried encapsulant utilizing whey protein hydrolysate-maltodextrin and probiotics with high viable counts and enhanced bioactive properties. Viscous products such as butter could be suitable carriers for such encapsulated probiotics. The objective of the current study was to standardize this encapsulant in salted and unsalted butter, followed by storage stability studies at 4 °C. Butter was prepared at a lab-scale level, and the encapsulant was added at 0.1% and 1%, followed by physiochemical and microbiological characterization. Analyses were conducted in triplicates, and means were differentiated (p < 0.05). The viability of probiotic bacteria and the physicochemical characteristics of the butter samples with 1% encapsulant were significantly higher as compared to 0.1%. Furthermore, the 1% encapsulated probiotics butter variant showed a relatively higher stability of probiotics ratio (LA5 and BB12) than the control with unencapsulated probiotics during storage conditions. Although the acid values increased along with a mixed trend of hardness, the difference was insignificant. This study thus provided a proof of concept for incorporating encapsulated probiotics in salted and unsalted butter samples.

Dairy proteins are potential and multipurpose ingredients used to prepare various food products. It exhibits many beneficial functionalities and bioactivities in the processing of food products. All the functionalities of different dairy proteins depend on their peculiar structural characteristics. So, the present study aimed to characterize high-protein powders with different matrices (milk protein concentrate (MPC), rennet casein (RCN), micellar casein concentrate (MCC), whey protein isolate (WPI), and native whey concentrate (NWC)) for their composition, handling, and reconstitution properties, and microstructure and compared them with whole milk powder (WMP) and skim milk powder (SMP). The bulk density of the high-protein powders was significantly (p < 0.05) lower than WMP and NFDM. Due to the low bulk density of the high-protein powders, the wettability of these powders in the water was very high. Microstructural analysis of powders by scanning electron microscopy reveals that the high-protein powder had tetrahedron-to-polyhedron-shaped particles depending on the protein level. The idea regarding the powder’s morphology might be helpful for further improvement in the production processes to modify the functional properties of high-protein milk powders.