Due to a growing demand for functional fermented dairy foods with improved nutritional qualities, the food processing industry has prompted to cut down on ingredients such as fat, sugar and additives, thereby necessitating some important changes in sensory qualities that influence consumer acceptance of fermented dairy products. Addition of functional ingredients such as whey protein concentrate (WPC) and honey may improve overall quality of yoghurt. It is well known ability of WPC to support formation of whey protein aggregates which highly improve physical properties of yoghurt. Honey may be an ideal sweetener for yoghurt due to its sugar concentration, low pH and a variety of beneficial nutritional properties.The aim of the present study was to examine the effect of WPC (1%), as well as combination of WPC and honey (H: 2% and 4%) on the physical and chemical properties of low fat set-style yoghurt during 21 days of storage at 5°C. Yogurt was prepared from milk (1.5% fat), treated on 95ºC for 10 min and yoghurt culture VIVOLAC DriSet Yogurt 442: 10% Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus and 90% Streptococcus thermophilus (Vivolac Culture Corporation, Indiana, USA), applying standard manufacturing procedure. It was concluded that the addition of honey in combination with WPC improved quality of produced yoghurt. On the other side, as honey presents a higher nutrition value ingredient, the addition of different percent of honey in combination with WPC could present a novel formulation for functional fermented dairy food.

The aim of this work was to examine the possibility of preparation of acidophilus milk and probiotic yoghurt by processing of milk (1%, 2.8% and 3.2% w/w fat) enriched with honeybee pollen (0.6% w/w). The quality of produced fermented milks was followed by comparing pH value during fermentation and storage time, as well as of lactic acid content and sensory properties during 14 days of storage. Fermentation time was influenced more the type of the starter culture than by honeybee pollen addition or fat level. The addition of honeybee pollen increased the production of lactic acid, regardless of the fat level. The effects of different starters (L. acidophilus LA-5, S. thermophilus and L. Delbrueckii ssp. bulgaricus) on the production of lactic acid were also different, but not as obvious as that due to pollen addition. The obtained results revealed that honeybee addition had positive effects on the physicochemical and sensory properties of produced acidophilus milk and probiotic yoghurt.