Abstract
The growth of dairy sheep farming in Brazil combined with consumer´s preference for concentrated yogurts and the search for innovative products with different flavors and textures demonstrate the opportunity for diversification of sheep milk derivatives. The objective of this study was to develop two novel formulations of Labneh cheese made of sheep’s milk and to verify their shelf life considering microbiological and physical-chemical quality under refrigeration storage. Formulations L1 and L2 were prepared using a similar protocol with pressing times of 4 and 3 hours respectively, and this difference caused little influence on the parameters evaluated, showing no need for this additional time. Both formulations had the desired spreadability characteristic and the final products showed moisture and fat content classified as very high moisture and semi-fat cheeses according to the Brazilian legislation. The microbiological counts in L1 and L2 after 150 days of cold storage were within legal limits for thermotolerant coliforms, Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella sp. and Listeria monocytogenes. The satisfactory results in the microbiological and physical-chemical evaluations demonstrated that the Labneh formulations and processing method were efficient to produce a stable product of good quality, indicating that it can be commercialized to a specific niche market.
Highlights
Labneh cheese is an intermediate product between fermented milk and high humidity cheeses made of yogurt or other fermented milk, such as kefir, with partial whey removal (Atamian et al, 2014; Rocha et al, 2014)
Dairy sheep farming is an activity with approximately twenty years in Brazil (Munieweg et al, 2017; Santos et al, 2016), a country that has a sheep herd corresponding to 23% of the total of the American continent (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2018), which 21% of this in located in the South of Brazil (Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística, 2018)
Labneh cheese was produced in a commercial cheese plant located in Southern Brazil using milk of Lacaune sheep
Summary
Labneh cheese is an intermediate product between fermented milk and high humidity cheeses made of yogurt or other fermented milk, such as kefir, with partial whey removal (Atamian et al, 2014; Rocha et al, 2014). It features white to cream color, smooth, pasty, semi-solid appearance, smooth consistency and good spreadability, with a mild flavor, which may tend to acid (Ferreira et al, 2012; Rocha et al, 2014) The preference for these yogurts with greater consistency, such as Greek yogurts, is a consumer trend in the Brazilian market (Siqueira, 2019). The Brazilian consumer market has tried other types of milk, such as sheep, goat and buffalo, and signaled the search for innovation, functional products and new flavors and textures from the dairy industry (Balthazar et al, 2019b; Siqueira, 2019)
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