Application of starter cultures to table olive fermentation: an overview on the experimental studies

Abstract

Table olives are one of the oldest fermented foods and are considered as an important component of the Mediterranean diet, since their richness in monounsaturated fats (primarily oleic acid) and phenolic compounds may function as antioxidants in the human body; in the Western world they represent one of the most popular fermented vegetables but, despite its economic significance, table olive fermentation is still craft-based and empirical. In particular, such a type of fermentation results from the competitive activities among indigenous, contaminating microorganisms, the microbial balance depending on several intrinsic (pH, water activity, diffusion of nutrients from the drupe, and level of anti-microbial compounds) and extrinsic (temperature, oxygen availability, and salt concentration) factors. At present, to reduce the risk of spoilage and to achieve a more predictable process there is an increasing interest in developing starter cultures for table olives fermentation. Anyway, the application of starter cultures in the field of table olives is quite far from reaching the diffusion as it has in other sectors of food industry (e.g., dairy products and alcoholic beverages). This review focuses on experimental researches devoted to studying starter cultures for possible application to table olive fermentation both at artisan and industrial level.

Microbiota and metabolome of un-started and started Greek-type fermentation of Bella di Cerignola table olives

“…Table olives are the fermented fruit of the Olea europaea L., which is traditionally cultivated in the Mediterranean countries (Spain, Italy, Greece and Turkey, mainly) and, more recently, in America, Australia and the Middle East (IOC, 2012). Table olives are an important component of the Mediterranean diet with potential beneficial effects on human health due to all of the above-described antioxidant properties of phenolic compounds (Corsetti et al, 2012). Immediately after harvesting, olives are inedible due to their high amount of oleuropein, a phenolic compound with a bitter taste (Garcia et al, 2004).…”

Evaluation of different conditions to enhance the performances of Lactobacillus pentosus OM13 during industrial production of Spanish-style table olives

“…The use of starter cultures is widely applied in food fermentations (Corsetti et al, 2012), including table olive production (Roig and Hernandez, 1991;Rodríguez-Gomez et al, 2013). Several studies have been performed to select the most adapted lactic acid bacteria (LAB) to be used as starters for table olive production (Servili et al, 2006;Aponte et al, 2012;Rodríguez-Gomez et al, 2013;Zago et al, 2013).…”

Enterococcus olivae sp. nov., isolated from Spanish-style green-olive fermentations

“…Enterococci can be involved in human nosocomial infections (Teixeira & Facklam, 2003), but they are also considered beneficial and safe in fermented products (Giraffa, 2002). At the time of this writing, according to the List of Prokaryotic names with Standing in Nomenclature (LPSN; http://www.bacterio.net), the genus Enterococcus consisted of 53 species and 2 subspecies.Spanish-style green-olive fermentations appear to be dominated by Lactobacillus pentosus strains (Ruiz-Barba & Jiménez-Díaz, 2012), but enterococci seem to have a role at the crucial initial stage of these fermentations because of their tolerance to high pH and their LAB characteristics (De Castro et al, 2002;Corsetti et al, 2012). Enterococci isolated from olive fermentations mostly belong to the Enterococcus casseliflavus group (De Castro et al, 2002;De Bellis et al, 2010).…”