Abstract
Table olives are one of the oldest vegetable fermented foods in the Mediterranean area. Beside their economic impact, fermented table olives represent also an important healthy food in the Mediterranean diet, because of their high content of bioactive and health-promoting compounds. However, olive fermentation is still craft-based following traditional processes, which can lead to a not fully predictable final product with the risk of spontaneous alterations. Nowadays, food industries have to face consumer demands for safe and healthy products. This review offers an overview about the main technologies used for olive fermentation and the role of lactic acid bacteria and yeasts characterizing this niche during the fermentation. Particular attention is offered to the selection and use of microorganisms as starter cultures to fasten and improve the safety of table olives. The development and implementation of multifunctional starter cultures in order to obtain heath-oriented table olives is also discussed.
Highlights
Table olives are defined as “the sound fruit of varieties of the cultivated olive trees (Olea europaea L.)that are chosen for their production of olive whose volume, shape, flash-to-stone ratio, fine flesh, taste, firmness, and ease of detachment from the stone make them suitable for processing; treated to remove their bitterness and preserved by natural fermentation; or by heat treatment, with or without the addition of preservatives; packed with or without covering liquid” [1]
Olive fermentation is a complex process involving a wide array of microorganisms and mainly lactic acid bacteria (LAB) (e.g. Lactobacillus plantarum and Lactobacillus pentosus) and yeasts (Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Wickerhamomyces anomalus, Candida boidinii, etc.)
The majority of studies indicated that L. plantarum and L. pentosus are the main LAB isolated from table olives [10,13,15,16]
Summary
Table olives are defined as “the sound fruit of varieties of the cultivated olive trees (Olea europaea L.). Table olives are considered one of the oldest fermented vegetables in the Mediterranean basin and are an important element for the economy of several countries. Their production exceeded 2.9 million tons in the 2017/2018 season and the main producers are Spain, Egypt, Turkey, Algeria, Italy, Greece, and Portugal [2]. The “trade standard applying to table olives” [1] describes the type of preparation of table olives; some traditional processes are still applied, such as the Castelvetrano system. This method is diffused in Sicily and mainly is based on the exploitation of the.
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