A SEMINAR REPORT ON

MICROORGANISMS IN FOOD
PROCESSING
BY
JAIYESINMI ADEOLA PRAISE
19/57MB/01226

SUPERVISOR- DR M.R. ADEDAYO

OUTLINE
 MICROORGANISMS AND FOOD
 GENE EDITING TECHNOLOGIES
 APPLICATION OF GENE EDITING
 CONCLUSION
 RECOMMENDATION
 REFERENCE

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MICROORGANISMS AND FOOD

Microorganisms are a group of tiny (microscopic) organisms that live all around
us (and on us).

They usually fall into one of three main groups:

 bacteria;
 viruses;
 fungi (e.g. yeasts and moulds).
In many cases, these organisms are undesirable, as they can make food spoil (“go
off”) or cause illness.

However, some bacteria and fungi are commonly used to make food; viruses
have no widespread use in food production.

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HISTORY OF MICROORGANISM USE
IN FOODS

 Microorganisms have been used to make food for millennia.

 Cheese, yogurt and bread all rely on fermentation by microorganisms in their
production, as do alcoholic drinks, such as wine and beer.
 It is thought that beer production may have started as early as 7000 BC and
cheese consumed as early as 3000 BC.
 The techniques used to make these products in modern times are more
advanced and more carefully controlled, but the principles remain largely the
same.

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MICROORGANISMS IN FERMENTED
FOODS

1. Bacteria
 Bacteria are the most dominant microorganisms in both naturally
fermented foods fermented by the use of starter cultures. Among
the bacteria, lactic acid bacteria are commonly associated with
acidic fermented foods, while non-LAB bacteria such as Bacillus,
micrococcaceae, Bifidobacterium, Brachybacterium,
Brevibacterium, and Propionibacterium etc., are also involved in
food fermentation, frequently as minor or secondary groups.

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MICROORGANISMS IN FERMENTED
FOODS
2. Fungi
 The major roles of fungi, mostly filamentous molds, in fermented
foods and alcoholic beverages are the production of intra- and
extracellular proteolytic and lipolytic enzymes that highly influence the
flavor and texture of the product, and also the degradation of
antinutritive factors improving bioavailability of minerals (Aidoo and
Nout, 2020). Species of Actinomucor, Amylomyces, Aspergillus,
Monascus, Mucor, Neurospora, Penicillium, Rhizopus, and Ustilago are
reported from many fermented foods, Asian nonfood amylolytic starters
and alcoholic beverages (Aidoo and Nout, 2020).

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MICROORGANISMS IN FERMENTED
FOODS
2.1 Yeasts
 The role of yeasts in food fermentation is to ferment sugar, produce secondary
metabolites, inhibit growth of mycotoxin-producing molds and display several
enzymatic activities such as lipolytic, proteolytic, pectinolytic, glycosidasic and urease
activities (Watanabe et al., 2019). Genera of yeasts reported from fermented foods,
alcoholic beverages and nonfood mixed amylolytic starters are Brettanomyces,
Candida, Cryptococcus, Galactomyces, Geotrichum, Kluyveromyces, Metschnikowia,
Pichia, Rhodotorula, Rhodosporidium, Saccharomyces Saccharomycodes,
Saccharomycopsis, Schizosaccharomyces, Torulaspora, Torulopsis, Trichosporon,
Yarrowia, and Zygosaccharomyces (Watanabe et al., 2020).

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FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE THE
DEVELOPMENT OF FERMENTED FOODS

1. Salt Concentration
 The lactic acid bacteria are known to tolerate high salt
concentration which gives them advantage to proliferate
over non-salt tolerant microorganisms. Leuconostoc sp
is known to majorly initiate lactic acid fermentations
because they have high salt tolerance levels (Prescott et
al., 2020).

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FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE THE
DEVELOPMENT OF FERMENTED FOODS
2. Temperature
 Different groups of bacteria function within certain temperature
range which is relevant to different fermentation processes (Lee
et al., 2019). Some bacteria have optimum temperature between
20 to 30 0C, higher temperatures of 50 – 55 0C and colder
temperatures of 15-20 0C while lactic acid bacteria and
Lactobacillus species function best at 18 – 22 0C (Lee et al.,
2019).

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FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE THE
DEVELOPMENT OF FERMENTED FOODS
3. Hydrogen ion concentration (pH)
 For most bacteria, their optimum pH is around 7.0
while some survive at low pH levels. Acid tolerant
bacteria such as Streptococcus sp and Lactobacillus sp
play significant roles in dairy and vegetable product
fermentations (Lee et al., 2019).

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FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE THE
DEVELOPMENT OF FERMENTED FOODS

4. Water activity
 Generally, bacteria require fairly high water activity of about 0.9 and
above to thrive. Only few species of bacteria could survive water
activities lower than the above as yeasts and fungi proliferate in foods
with low water activities (Prescott et al., 2020).

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 FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE THE
DEVELOPMENT OF FERMENTED FOODS

5. Oxygen availability
 Fermentative bacteria could be anaerobes or aerobic depending on their
requirement for oxygen to undergo metabolism. Lactobacillus sp are
microaerophilic as they grow in reduced atmospheric oxygen. Insufficient
oxygen being available during aerobic fermentation becomes a limiting factor
since it is what determines the product, the energy released and the amount of
biological product obtained from the reaction (Lee et al., 2020).

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 ROLE OF MICROORGANISMS IN THE PRODUCTION OF SOME
INDIGENOUS FERMENTED FOODS IN NIGERIA

1. FUFU
Bacillus sp plays a major role by breaking down the pectin in the cell
walls of the cassava root (Adesulu and Awojobi, 2018). This was as a
result of the production of pectinase. After the pectinase activity, the
lactic acid bacterium (LAB) acts by the production of flavour. The soft
tubers are then sieved and allowed to sediment and dewatered with press
(Adesulu and Awojobi, 2018).

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 ROLE OF MICROORGANISMS IN THE PRODUCTION OF
SOME INDIGENOUS FERMENTED FOODS IN NIGERIA

2. GARI
Corynebacterium manihot played a significant role in the fermentation of Gari (Oyewole and Isah,
2020). It breaks down the starch to organic acids including lactic acid. This brings about a drop in the
pH value which encouraged the rapid breakdown of linamarin and this ushers in the second stage where
there is subsequent proliferation of the fungus Geotrichum candidum which produces the favouring
ketones, aldehydes and other compounds (Oyewole and Isah, 2020). Lactobacillus sp, Leuconostoc sp
and the yeast Candida sp are also present in the fermenting mash and they produce linamarse which
breaks down the linamarin and remove the cyanide in the gari (Oyewole and Isah, 2020).

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ROLE OF MICROORGANISMS IN THE PRODUCTION OF
SOME INDIGENOUS FERMENTED FOODS IN NIGERIA
3. OGI
Initially, the fungi Cephalosporium and Fusarium which were
acquired from the field were involved in the fermentation of ogi
within the first 24 hours (Obire and Amadi, 2019). They were soon
replaced by lactic acid bacteria (Lactobacillus plantarum and
Lactobacillus mesenteroides) and yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae,
Rhodotorula spp and Candida mycoderma). These microbes are
predominant during the wet milling of the corn. The activities of
lactic acid bacteria and occasionally that of yeasts and acetic acid
bacteria are responsible for flavour production in the ogi (Oyewole
and Isah, 2020).
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 CONCLUSION

 The sustainable use of microorganisms in food fermentation is based on the

interrelationship of indigenous knowledge of food fermentation, modern expertise

and information, basic understanding of the microbial background of fermentation

and of Good Hygienic Practices (GHP), some experience in handling of microbial

strains or cultures, even under crude conditions such as back-slopping, and

conservation of microbial strains.

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RECOMMENDATION
 Appropriate approaches geared
towards the enhancement of the
qualities of indigenous foods in
Nigeria and the World will be
indispensable towards the growth and
sustenance of the food industries.

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 THANK YOU

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