Selection of yeasts with multifunctional features for application as starters in natural black table olive processing

Yeasts are unicellular eukaryotic microorganisms with a great importance in the elaboration on many foods and beverages. In the last years, researches have focused their attention to determine the favourable effects that these microorganisms could provide to table olive processing. In this context, the present study assesses, at laboratory scale, the potential technological (resistance to salt, lipase, esterase and β-glucosidase activities) and probiotic (phytase activity, survival to gastric and pancreatic digestions) features of 12 yeast strains originally isolated from Greek natural black table olive fermentations. The multivariate classification analysis carried out with all information obtained (a total of 336 quantitative input data), revealed that the most promising strains (clearly discriminated from the rest of isolates) were Pichia guilliermondii Y16 (which showed overall the highest resistance to salt and simulated digestions) and Wickerhamomyces anomalus Y18 (with the overall highest technological enzymatic activities), while the rest of strains were grouped together in two clearly differentiated clusters. Thus, this work opens the possibility for the evaluation of these two selected yeasts as multifunctional starters, alone or in combination with lactic acid bacteria, in real table olive fermentations.