Resumo

The development of probiotic foods, preserving adequate concentration and viability of probiotic bacteria and high consumer acceptability, is a challenge. The addition of prebiotics in food enhances technological and sensory features and might improve probiotic microorganisms viability. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of the addition of a prebiotic mix in the probiotic viability and consumer acceptability of petit-suisse cheese. Three different cheese models were evaluated: Probiotic cheese (PC), containing the probiotic strains Lactobacillus acidophilus LA-5 (LA5) and Bifidobacterium animalis subsp. lactis BB12 (BB12) and the starter culture Streptococcus thermophilus; Synbiotic cheese (SC), containing the probiotic strains Lactobacillus acidophilus LA-5 (LA5) and Bifidobacterium animalis subsp. lactis BB12 (BB12) plus a prebiotics mix of inulin and fructooligosaccharides and Control cheese (CC), with only the starter S. thermophilus. The probiotic cultures viability was monitored throughout 28 days of storage at 4ºC, by pour-plating in modified MRS agar containing maltose (LA5) and MRS-LP agar (BB12). The sensory evaluation was conducted based on a hedonic scale (from 1 = disliked extremely to 9 = liked extremely) throughout 21 days of storage. SC exhibited higher viability values (8.37 and 8.64 log CFU/g for LA-5 and BB-12, respectively) when compared with PC (8.17 and 8.49 log CFU/g for LA-5 and BB-12, respectively). However, no statistical differences were observed (p>0.05). The best acceptability score was observed for SC (above 6.8), followed by PC (above 5.9) and CC (below 5.3) (p<0.05). Thereby, the addition of prebiotic mixture was beneficial for the viability of probiotic microorganisms during storage and represented an upgrade in the sensorial properties of petit-suisse cheese.