Worldwide, tremendous amounts of food, including milk and dairy products, are lost or wasted. Although refrigeration permits longer storage of raw milk, low temperatures still do not prevent the action of other abiotic and biotic factors that promote biochemical, chemical, microbial, sensorial and nutritional changes in raw milk, which also affect milk-derived dairy products. Treatment by N2 gas flushing showed great potential in preserving the microbiological quality of raw milk during storage at low and milder temperatures. Here, we examined the impact of cold storage (at 6°C up to 7 days), on the ascorbic acid content, extent of auto-oxidation, and on levels of lipolysis and proteolysis along with bacterial growth, in three raw milk samples in the presence or absence of N2. When N2 gas was applied, lower levels of lipolysis and proteolysis were found to coincide with the detection of lower numbers of bacterial lipase and protease producers in raw milk. Furthermore, lower auto-oxidation was detected in N2-treated samples than in only cold stored controls. By demonstrating that key components of milk were better preserved during cold storage, the present study further highlights the advantages of the N2 flushing treatment in terms of preserving the quality and safety of raw milk and its derived dairy products.

Cold storage aims to preserve the quality and safety of raw milk from farms to dairies; unfortunately, low temperatures also promote the growth of psychrotrophic bacteria, some of which produce heat-stable enzymes that cause spoilage of milk or dairy products. Previously, N2 gas flushing of raw milk has demonstrated significant potential as a method to hinder bacterial growth at both laboratory and pilot plant scales. Using a mass spectrometry-based lipidomics approach, we examined the impact of cold storage [at 6°C for up to 7 days, the control condition (C)], on the relative amounts of major phospholipids (phosphatidylethanolamine/PE, phosphatidylcholine/PC, phosphatidylserine/PS, phosphatidylinositol/PI, and sphingomyelin/SM) in three bovine raw milk samples, and compared it to the condition that received additional N2 gas flushing (N). As expected, bacterial growth was hindered by the N2-based treatment (over 4 log-units lower at day 7) compared to the non-treated control condition. At the end of the cold storage period, the control condition (C7) revealed higher hydrolysis of PC, SM, PE, and PS (the major species reached 27.2, 26.7, 34.6, and 9.9 μM, respectively), compared to the N2-flushed samples (N7) (the major species reached 55.6, 35.9, 54.0, and 18.8 μM, respectively). C7 samples also exhibited a three-fold higher phosphatidic acid (PA) content (6.8 μM) and a five-fold higher content (17.3 μM) of lysophospholipids (LPE, LPC, LPS, and LPI) whereas both lysophospholipids and PA remained at their initial levels for 7 days in N7 samples. Taking into consideration the significant phospholipid losses in the controls, the lipid profiling results together with the microbiological data suggest a major role of phospholipase (PLase) C (PLC) in phospholipolysis during cold storage. However, the experimental data also indicate that bacterial sphingomyelinase C, together with PLases PLD and PLA contributed to the degradation of phospholipids present in raw milk as well, and potential contributions from PLB activity cannot be excluded. Altogether, this lipidomics study highlights the beneficial effects of N2 flushing treatment on the quality and safety of raw milk through its ability to effectively hinder phospholipolysis during cold storage.

The use of oxygen enriched air is a common practice in high-temperature bioleaching tests (>70 degrees C) to overcome oxygen solubility limitation and reduced the energy costs of the process. Air is usually preferred in medium and low-temperature operations mainly for technical and economic constraints. Nevertheless, under high-sulfide loading conditions - high-grade metal sulfide concentrates and high solids concentration - the microbial and chemical demand for oxygen is significantly increased during the bioleaching process. If not satisfied, this high oxygen demand might limit the oxidation efficiency. Therefore it requires the injection of large amounts of air. Sparging with oxygen enriched gas instead of air may offer an interesting alternative process option to improve gas transfer in the bioleaching reactor and to provide an adequate oxygen supply in order to satisfy the oxygen demand. It might be useful to develop innovative alternative to the classical stirred tank reactor (STR) technology. However, the use of such conditions can lead to much higher dissolved oxygen (DO) concentrations than those encountered with air. Very few papers have been devoted to the study of the optimal range of DO concentrations for bioleaching processes. Most of them reported an inhibitory effect of DO concentrations above 5 ppm. The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of DO on the bioleaching efficiency under oxygen enriched atmosphere in 21 L stirred tank reactor at 42 degrees C. Bioleaching experiments were performed in continuous mode with sulfide-rich tailings wastes composed mainly of pyrite (51%) and quartz using the "BRGM-KCC" bacterial consortia. The solid load was close to 20% (w/w). Using various oxygen supply conditions (partial pressure, gas rate), the DO concentration in the reactor varied between 4 and 17 ppm. For a DO ranging from 4 to 13 ppm, a good bacterial oxidizing activity was observed and the sulfide dissolution efficiency increased with the DO concentration. It is assumed that this improvement of the bioleaching efficiency was linked to an increase of the oxygen transfer rate from the gas phase to the liquid phase rather than a direct effect of the DO level. When the DO concentration reached 17 ppm a significant decrease of the microbial activity and consequently of the oxygen consumption was noticed. These results show that there is a critical value above which the DO concentration is detrimental to the activity of the bioleach microorganisms present in the "BRGM-KCC" consortia but this value is much higher than the one usually mentioned in the literature. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The influence of cryogenic cooling of cheese curd on the yield and the quality of semi-hard cheese (Trappist type) was studied. During three successive cheese manufacturing processes, the curd at moulding was separated into two aliquots: the first being directly pressed (control cheese) and the second being quickly cooled previously at 20 °C in a cryogenic cabinet (trial cheese). The cryogenic cooling of the curd slightly delayed the acidification and significantly reduced the syneresis. The increase in the cheese yield (+4.8% at brining and +3.8% at the end of ripening) was only due to the increase in the moisture retention. The sensory characteristics of the ripened cheeses were similar for both control and trial cheeses. The slight modifications in the melting texture and the acid taste were due to a post-acidification phenomenon that could be easily corrected by the classical operating parameters. Although stretchability was slightly increased in trial cheeses, the other functionalities were similar to those of control cheeses. Moreover, the comparison of the two experiments that were conducted with different kinetics of cooling suggests that optimisation of the cryogenic parameters could lead to a more marked increase in the cheese yield, due to higher moisture retention, and also lead to a better recovery of milk components.

The aim of the present work was to identify and quantify physical mechanisms responsible for in-nose aroma release during the consumption of mint-flavored carbonated beverages in order to better understand how they are perceived. The effect of two composition factors (sugar and CO2) was investigated on both the sensory and physicochemical properties of drinks by studying in vitro and in vivo aroma release. Sensory results revealed that the presence of CO2 increased aroma perception regardless of the sugar content. In agreement with volatility parameters, in vivo measurements showed that carbonated drinks released a greater quantity of aroma compounds in the nose space than non-carbonated ones. CO2 seemed thus to induce large modifications of the physicochemical mechanisms responsible for the aroma release and flavor perception of soft drinks. Moreover, sugar content seemed to have an impact (increase) on aroma perception only in the case of non-carbonated beverages. Sensory interactions were thus observed, in particular, between sweet and aroma perceptions. For carbonated beverages, sugar content had an impact only on aroma release, but not on their perception.