Probiotics in the dairy industry—Advances and opportunities

Abstract

The past two decades have witnessed a global surge in the application of probiotics as functional ingredients in food, animal feed, and pharmaceutical products. Among food industries, the dairy industry is the largest sector where probiotics are employed in a number of dairy products including sour/fermented milk, yogurt, cheese, butter/cream, ice cream, and infant formula. These probiotics are either used as starter culture alone or in combination with traditional starters, or incorporated into dairy products following fermentation, where their presence imparts many functional characteristics to the product (for instance, improved aroma, taste, and textural characteristics), in addition to conferring many health‐promoting properties. However, there are still many challenges related to the stability and functionality of probiotics in dairy products. This review highlights the advances, opportunities, and challenges of application of probiotics in dairy industries. Benefits imparted by probiotics to dairy products including their role in physicochemical characteristics and nutritional properties (clinical and functional perspective) are also discussed. We transcend the traditional concept of the application of probiotics in dairy products and discuss paraprobiotics and postbiotics as a newly emerged concept in the field of probiotics in a particular relation to the dairy industry. Some potential applications of paraprobiotics and postbiotics in dairy products as functional ingredients for the development of functional dairy products with health‐promoting properties are briefly elucidated.

Dairy Lactic Acid Bacteria and Their Potential Function in Dietetics: The Food–Gut-Health Axis

“…Although other microorganisms are used in fermented dairy products, LAB has a greater place. The main dairy products in which LAB are used fermented milk, yogurt, infant formula, cheese, butter and cream, and ice cream [ 25 , 26 ]. In general, dairy products are considered primary dietary sources for LABs as probiotics which can be found naturally or added afterwards [ 27 ].…”

“…In general, dairy products are considered primary dietary sources for LABs as probiotics which can be found naturally or added afterwards [ 27 ]. Although there is no certain cell count level that can guarantee the health effects of the probiotic strain in a food product, at least 10 6 –10 8 cfu/g is reported as a sufficient amount to benefit from the beneficial effects of probiotics [ 25 ]. This clearly shows that the presence of a culture that can show probiotic potentials does not guarantee that the product will be probiotic.…”

“…Some of the most studied probiotic LAB in the literature are Lactocaseibacillus rhamnosus GG (ATCC53103), Lactocaseibacillus rhamnosus HN001, Lacticaseibacillus casei Shirota, Lacticaseibacillus casei Zhang, Lactobacillus acidophilus NCFM, Lactobacillus acidophilus LA-5, and Lacticaseibacillus casei DN-114 001. Recently, novel probiotic LAB such as Limosilactobacillus reuteri and Lactobacillus johnsonii are used in the development of functional dairy products [ 25 , 32 ]. According to the Codex Alimentarius definitions of milk and dairy products, the specific starter cultures of yogurt and other fermented milk products are given in Figure 1 [ 33 ].…”

Buffalo Milk as a Source of Probiotic Functional Products

“…However, probiotics are most commonly used in plantbased butters such as peanut butter and butters from coconut, flaxseed, and sunflower oils. Although, recent studies have suggested the utilisation of probiotic bacteria (Bifidobacterium bifidum, Lactobacillus acidophilus, and L. maltaramicus) in butter elaborated from milk [76,77]. Conversely, probiotics strains usually isolated from commercially available fresh butter are not present in raw buffalo milk.…”

“…Conversely, probiotics strains usually isolated from commercially available fresh butter are not present in raw buffalo milk. On the other hand, probiotic microorganisms of buffalo milk L. delbrueckii and S. thermophilus were recently isolated from homemade butter and reported as starter cultures to butter fermentation processing [77]. To obtain the beneficial effects of butter as a functional food is recommend its consumption level at 25 g per day [76].…”