ABSTRACT

Fermented milk products, such as yogurt and cheese, appeared in human diet about 8000-10000 years ago. Up to the 20th century, milk fermentation remained an unregulated process, and, the discovery and characterization of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) have changed the views on milk fermentation. In the early 1960s, commercial starter culture companies developed the production technology to freeze-dry liquid cultures and produce concentrated frozen starter cultures for the direct inoculation of bulk starter tanks at the dairy. In the beginning of 1980s Chr. Hansen released the fi rst Direct-Vat-Set (DVS) culture comprising defi ned single strains. Today, several commercial starter companies offer an extensive range of frozen and freeze-dried concentrated cultures for direct inoculation, eliminating the need for use of bulk starters, and thus, propagation problems. In fact, these fermentation businesses, together with probiotic products, represent a total global market value of over 100 billion Euros (de Vos 2011).