Many convenient food products are minimally processed, including seafood products.
Many hurdles are traditionally used in the processing of seafood; for instance salt, smoke, organic acids and packaging such as modified atmosphere and vacuum packaging. Still these lightly preserved products are high-risk products when it comes to growth of unwanted bacteria as the hurdles utilised in seafood processing are not adequate to ensure that, for example, Listeria monocytogenes cannot develop.
Selection and application of protective cultures have been investigated by research institutes for many years as an additional hurdle to improve safety of seafood fabricates.
It is not easy to find strains that may be used as protective cultures with antimicrobial properties without influencing the sensory features of the food products. But two French institutes, Ifremer and Oniris, have successfully selected strains of Carnobacterium producing bacteriocins with promising anti-listerial activity which fulfil the demand to a protective culture for seafood application.
This concept is now being commercialised by Italian company Sacco S.r.l. as the innovative protective starter culture, Lyoflora FP-18, which will enhance safety in seafood products such as cold-smoked salmon on which Lyoflora FP-18 may be applied either by brine injection or in the processing of dry-salting.
