The demand for functional foods, including milk fermented with probiotic microbial cultures, has increased the interest in research to maintain these microorganisms viable in the product. Thus the objective of this work was to formulate strawberry flavoured fermented milk with added potentially beneficial prebiotics and probiotics, and with suitable sensory characteristics. A 2³ experimental design was used to optimize the product flavour, evaluating the addition of sucrose (50, 85 and 120 g.L-1), the natural dye cochineal carmine (0.5, 1.0 and 1.5 g.L-1) and a natural strawberry aroma (0.10, 0.25 and 0.40 g.L-1). Different concentrations of Bio Rich culture (L. acidophilus, Bifidobacterium and S. thermophilus) were tested (1.00, 0.50 and 0.33 g.L-1) ranking the products in according to sensory preference. Two fructo-oligosaccharide syrup concentrations (50 and 100 g.L-1) were evaluated according to their sensory acceptability and microbiological analyses. A strawberry flavoured fermented dairy beverage was developed using (g.L-1) 0.33 culture, 120 sucrose, 1.5 dye, 0.4 aroma and 100 fructo-oligosaccharide syrup. The increase in concentration of the prebiotics positively influenced product preference, with acceptance rates of 88% and increased microbiological counts of L. acidophilus and Bifidobacterium at 1.7 × 10(7) and 4.8 × 10(6) CFU.mL-1 for 100 g.L-1 of prebiotics.
Product development; Prebiotics; Probiotics
