Cheese is generally susceptible to contamination by fungal spoilage organisms. The application of essential oils (EOs) as preservatives in dairy products has been growing recently. Thus, they need to be tested for various interactions before being used in cheese production processes. The aim of this study was first to determine the antifungal and antioxidant effects of two EOs and Lactococcus lactis subsp. lactis extract (Ex) against three spoilage fungi; and second to evaluate EOs/Ex, alone and in combination, on inoculated cheese samples. The combination of EOs and Ex revealed a significant decrease in microbial load and higher antioxidant activity compared with the control samples.

Aflatoxin M1 (AFM1) is a carcinogenic mycotoxin mostly found in dairy products. The aim of this study was to evaluate the anti-aflatoxin effect of Bifidobacterium bifidum and Saccharomyces cerevisiae with two different concentrations (10 8 and 10 10 cfu/mL), alone or mixed, in contaminated skim milk with three concentrations of AFM1 (0.1, 0.25 and 0.5 μg/mL) and incubated at 4, 25 and 37°C for different times (30, 60, 120 min and 24 h). We found that the storage time is a key factor that significantly affects AFM1 removal. Also, removal of AFM1 was dependent on other factors such as micro-organisms' concentration, incubation temperature and toxin concentration. The effective strategy for the highest removal of AFM1 (90%) in contaminated milk spiked with 0.5 μg/mL, which was treated with mixed strains at concentration10 10 cfu/mL and incubated at 37°C after 24 h. The presented methodology can be considered as a potential method for reducing the aflatoxin content of polluted dairy products.