Characterisation of the microflora contaminating the wooden vats used for traditional Sicilian cheese production

Abstract

Traditional Sicilian cheese productions are carried out employing traditional wooden vats, called <em>tina.</em> Many studies have highlighted the beneficial role of wooden dairy equipment by contributing to enriching the milk microflora and improving the acidification processes. The present work was undertaken to evaluate the safety of the wooden vats used to coagulate milk. To this purpose, the different microbial populations hosted onto the internal surfaces of the vats used to produce two different stretched cheeses, namely <em>Caciocavallo Palermitano</em> and <em>Vastedda della valle del Belìce DOP</em>, were investigated for the presence of spoilage and pathogenic microorganisms as well as for bacteria with inhibitory effect in vitro against pathogenic microorganisms. A wide biodiversity of protechnological lactic acid bacteria (LAB), in terms of species, was revealed. Several LAB inhibited the growth of <em>Listeria monocytogenes</em> ATCC 7644. The wooden vats analysed resulted safe for three main findings: absence of the main pathogenic species, presence of high levels of LAB, anti-<em>Listeria</em> activity of many LAB.