Biotechnological protocol for the production of plant-based hybrid cheese-analogues

Dairy microbial strains were employed to define a biotechnological protocol for the production of plant-based hybrid cheese analogues. After preliminary assays, sweet lupin and oat protein extracts were both fermented (30°C for 72 h) with Bifidobacterium lactis sub. lactis BB12 and with Lacticaseibacillus paracasei subsp. paracasei DN-114001. Plant-based hybrid cheese analogues were produced mixing fermented flours with β-glucans, UHT whole bovine milk, inoculated with a fresh milk culture of Streptococcus thermophilus ITEM 19224, and salt. After 72 h at 20°C, the hybrid cheese analogues were gauze filtered, supplemented with plant-based cream and stored for 28 days at 4°C. Among eight ingredient/microbial starter combinations, plant-based hybrid cheese analogue with sweet lupin protein extract fermented with L. paracasei subsp. paracasei DN-114001 and S. thermophilus ITEM 19224 showed the best results producing, at the end of cold storage, a cell load higher than 9 and 8 log cfu g-1, respectively. From a nutritional point of view, depending on samples, dry matter content of vegetal origin, about 45-50%, was largely represented by dietary fibers (5.2% and 3.5% in lupin or oat cheese analogues, respectively) and by proteins. The highest protein content was found in the sweet lupin-based cheese analogues, where it reached 70% of the dry matter content. The plant-based hybrid cheese analogues, compared with their 100% bovine milk counterpart, were characterized by an increase in the concentration of linoleic acid (C18:2n6), oleic acid (C18:1), total mono- and poly-unsaturated fatty acids, including ω-6 fatty acids. In this work, vegetable protein extracts were successfully fermented by probiotic strains. They survived in a second fermentation step when incubated together with selected and characterized autochthonous protechnological lactic acid bacteria. A new kind of hybrid cheese analogues useful to introduce traditional dairy enterprises in the new and promising market of plant-based cheese alternatives was realized.