Dehydrated strawberries for probiotic delivery: Influence of dehydration and probiotic incorporation methods

In this study, dehydrated strawberries have been proposed as probiotic carriers. Strawberries were cut into halves, incorporated with Bacillus coagulans BC4 by two alternative methods (impregnation and alginate coating) submitted to drying (freeze - FD oven OD). Six treatments carried out, namely: OD (no probiotic), I-FD, I-OD, C-FD, C-OD (I- C- meaning impregnation coating respectively). While the incorporation method affected a few properties of resulting products (mainly viability on processing), resulted in remarkable differences. The freeze-dried strawberry halves presented higher retention chemical (ascorbic acid anthocyanin contents) physical (shape, color, firmness) well better acceptance viability, release small intestine. I-FD treatment highest after processing through 6-month storage (near 8 log cfu.g −1 ). • Strawberry added either or coating. Probiotic dried freeze dried. Impregnation processing. Freeze drying: viability. More than 6 probiotics released