MICROENCAPSULATION WITH SPRAY CHILLING IMPROVES PROBIOTIC SURVIVAL AND FUNCTIONALITIY IN REQUEIJÃO CREMOSO PROCESSED CHEESE

Probiotics are live microorganisms, which confer health effects to the host when administered in adequate amounts. Requeijão cremoso is a Brazilian processed cheese obtained by fusing a mass of washed and drained fresh curd using temperatures of 85-95 oC for 2-5 min. Probiotic cultures have demonstrated low heat resistance. This study proposes a change in the processing of Requeijão cremoso processed cheese in order to allow probiotic addition before heat treatment. Three formulations were prepared: (CONT) regular salt content and curd fusion (90 oC/2 min), (FREE) reduced salt content + free probiotic culture added after curd fusion (90 oC/2 min), and (MICRO) reduced salt content + microencapsulated probiotic culture added before curd fusion (70 oC/5 min). Lipid microparticles loaded with L. acidophilus La-5 were produced using the spray chilling technique. Microencapsulation yield and microparticles characterization were performed. Furthermore, probiotic survival was evaluated in the product and simulated gastrointestinal conditions (TGI) for 90 days of storage at 5 oC. Data were submitted to the Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Tukey test (p < 0.05). The microparticles had minimum and maximum sizes of 47 ± 6 µm and 121 ± 9 µm, respectively, with an average of 78 ± 4 µm. The microencapsulation yielded 99.25%, as the counts were initially 8.20 log CFU/g and 8.14 log CFU/g after microencapsulation. The microparticles were dense and spherical, and had a rough surface, with the adhesion of smaller particles. No substantial aggregation was observed. The FREE and MICRO formulations showed probiotic counts in the range of 7.9-8.5 and 7-7.5 log CFU/g during the storage period, respectively. In TGI, from 60 days of storage, only the MICRO formulation showed probiotic survival higher than 6 log CFU/g. It can be concluded that the proposed methodology is suitable for processing probiotic Requeijão cremoso processed cheese.