ABSTRACT
Production of high-quality and microbiologically safe fermented dairy products requires controlled growth and microbial interactions between lactic acid bacteria and microscopic fungi. For this purpose, detailed knowledge of their growth characteristics is needed. Therefore, the objective of this study was to analyse the growth dynamics of lactic acid bacteria of commercial DVS® FRESCO® 1000NG culture and dairy isolate of microscopic fungus Geotrichum candidum during their co-cultivation in milk. The growth dynamics of microorganisms was studied in dependence on their initial counts at 12, 15, 18, 21 and 30 °C. Growth parameters were calculated by two primary predictive models, model of Baranyi and Roberts and Huang's model. Both models showed good ability to describe the growth dynamics of studied microorganisms, as it was confirmed by low values of RMSE index. Both microbial cultures, Fresco culture and Geotrichum candidum, showed good growth ability in milk since they reached the average maximum density of 9.50 ± 0.13 log CFU/mL and 5.85 ± 0.69 log CFU/mL (n = 45), in order. Maximum density of studied microorganisms was not affected by their initial counts or incubation temperature. On the other hand, effect of mutual ratio of microbial initial counts and increasing temperature had a significant impact on growth dynamics.
