Selection criteria for lactic acid bacteria to be used as starter cultures for various food commodities

Abstract

Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) are the most important bacteria used in food fermentations. Apart from general demands for starter cultures from the view of safety, technological effectiveness and economics, numerous specific aspects have to be considered when selecting strains for the different food fermentations. Therefore selection criteria for LAB depend on the type and the desired characteristics of the final product, the desired metabolic activities, the characteristics of the raw materials and the applied technology. Special selection criteria for LAB for use in the fermentation of sausages and vegetables as well as for the malolactic fermentation in wine are discussed.

Phenotypic characterization and species-specific PCR of promising starter culture strains of Lactobacillus plantarum isolated from naturally fermented sausages

“…The higher concentrations of acetic acid result in a pungent off-flavor and the formation of higher amounts of carbon dioxide leads to the development of cavities of different sizes (7). All ten random selected isolates were able to grow at pH 3.9 and 9.6 at 37ºC on MRS agar.…”

Physiological and molecular techniques for the study of bacterial community development in sausage fermentation

“…The physiological properties of bacteria isolated from meat fermentations, such as bacteriocins (Meisel et al 1989 ;Schillinger and Lücke 1989 ;Farber et al 1993 ;Vignolo et al 1993 ;Giraffa et al 1994 ;Rekhif et al 1995 ;Enan et al 1996), lipolysis (Garcia et al 1992 ;Ortiz de Apodaca et al 1993 ;Johansson et al 1994), proteolysis (Grazia et al 1990 ;Ortiz de Apodaca et al 1993 ;Johansson et al 1994), nitrite and nitrate reductases (Wolf and Hammes 1988 ;Buckenhüskes 1993 ;Mares et al 1994) have been studied in detail.…”

“…In modern sausage production technology starter cultures containing a mixture of lactic acid bacteria, mainly Lactobacillus curvatus and Lact. sake, Micrococcaceae, streptomycetes, yeasts and fungi, are used to ensure the dominance of a starter during the whole ripening process and to obtain better aroma, longer shelf-life antagonism against pathogens and faster colour formation (Hammes 1990 ;Hammes et al 1990 ;Buckenhüskes 1993). When sausages, such as most of the Italian fermented dry sausages, are produced without the addition of industrial starter cultures, the environmental conditions promote the growth of a specific…”

Multifactorial diversity sustains microbial community stability

“…Many currently used dairy starter cultures are undefined and originate from farms that employed artisanal back-slopping practices (Buckenhuskes, 1993). Starter culture communities may face several (a)biotic selective pressures during back-slopping regimes.…”