ABSTRACT
The advancing development of food processing procedures and cultured foods technology has resulted in the use of starter culture bacteria that initiate the fermentation processes. Starter cultures are selected today more on the basis of the quality of cultured foods they can produce rather than on their ability to preserve the food. Food preservation today is more dependent upon thermal processing and low temperature storage than on fermentation of the food. However, a renewed interest has developed in the preservative actions produced by starter cultures in the effort to find additional means to enhance the preservation of certain food products. Some lactic streptococci and lactobacilli used as starter culture bacteria produce antibiotic compounds. The use of cells of starter culture bacteria and/or metabolites produced by them may be very useful as adjuncts in enhancing the control of psychrotrophic microorganisms in refrigerated foods.
