Due to a growing demand for functional fermented dairy foods with improved nutritional qualities, the food processing industry has prompted to cut down on ingredients such as fat, sugar and additives, thereby necessitating some important changes in sensory qualities that influence consumer acceptance of fermented dairy products. Addition of functional ingredients such as whey protein concentrate (WPC) and honey may improve overall quality of yoghurt. It is well known ability of WPC to support formation of whey protein aggregates which highly improve physical properties of yoghurt. Honey may be an ideal sweetener for yoghurt due to its sugar concentration, low pH and a variety of beneficial nutritional properties.The aim of the present study was to examine the effect of WPC (1%), as well as combination of WPC and honey (H: 2% and 4%) on the physical and chemical properties of low fat set-style yoghurt during 21 days of storage at 5°C. Yogurt was prepared from milk (1.5% fat), treated on 95ºC for 10 min and yoghurt culture VIVOLAC DriSet Yogurt 442: 10% Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus and 90% Streptococcus thermophilus (Vivolac Culture Corporation, Indiana, USA), applying standard manufacturing procedure. It was concluded that the addition of honey in combination with WPC improved quality of produced yoghurt. On the other side, as honey presents a higher nutrition value ingredient, the addition of different percent of honey in combination with WPC could present a novel formulation for functional fermented dairy food.
Isolation and characterization of bacterial strains with a hydrolytic profile with potential use in bioconversion of agroindustial by-products and waste