Role of Microbes in Sustainable Food Preservation

Biopreservation is identified as the use of beneficial microorganisms or their naturally occurring metabolites to protect the food safety and to extend the shelf-life of food products via inhibiting pathogenic and spoilage microbial activity. Majorly, lactic acid bacteria (LAB) have been defined in terms of the mentioned duties as bioprotective cultures and/or biopreservation agents. However, other than LAB some other microbes also have a crucial role in the sustainability of food preservation. Biopreservatives are important to prevent the use of synthetic additives such as antimicrobial and antioxidant compounds, which have potential risks to consumer health. In recent years, corresponding to the awareness of consumers, there is a tendency toward natural foods that do not contain synthetic chemicals. Therefore, the discovery of potential new antimicrobial or antioxidant agents has become important in food industry. This chapter introduces potential microbial species as bioprotective cultures as well as their metabolites via their functionalities in terms of obtaining sustainable food preservation. Regarding this, subjects on the importance of food preservation, the role of microbial cultures in food preservation, the metabolites produced by cultures, the possibility of using culture metabolites and paraprobiotics in food preservation, and the application methods of bioprotective agents to foods are presented and discussed in this chapter.