SURVIVABILITY OF MICROENCAPSULATED Limosilactobacillus reuteri subsp. rodentium DURING KOMBUCHA FERMENTATION

4th International Symposium On Biotechnology (2026),  [pp. 931-940]
 
AUTHOR(S) / АУТОР(И): Aleksandra Ranitović, Dragoljub Cvetković, Tara Budimac, Olja Šovljanski, Ana Tomić, Anja Vučetić, Jelena Vulić
 
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.46793/SBT26.931R

ABSTRACT / САЖЕТАК:

Kombucha is a traditional fermented beverage, which is usually prepared by fermenting sweetened black tea using a symbiotic consortium of acetic acid bacteria (AAB) and yeasts. Although this beverage is known to exhibit several functional properties, it still can’t be labelled as a probiotic product since maintaining probiotic viability remains a challenge due to unfavorable conditions of fermentation. In this study, probiotic lactic acid bacteria strain (Limosilactobacillus reuteri subsp. rodentium) was encapsulated using two carrier materials (pea (PP) and whey protein (WP)) and added to the fermentation broth separately at the beginning of the fermentation to examine their growth and survival during fermentation conditions. Encapsulation efficiency (EE), changes in number of yeasts, AAB and LAB, as well as pH and titratable acidity (TA) were examined during 4 days of kombucha fermentation.

KEYWORDS / КЉУЧНЕ РЕЧИ:

kombucha, microencapsulation, Lactobacillus, fermentation, survivability

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT / ПРОЈЕКАТ:

The present research was funded by the Provincial Secretariat for Higher Education and Scientific Research of Autonomous Province Vojvodina (Project: Development of Next-Generation Probiotic Kombucha for the Health Preservation of AP Vojvodina’s Population (KOMBIO4HEALTH), grant number: 003869663 2025 09418 003 000 000 001 04 004), and by the Republic of Serbia program of the Ministry of Science, Technological Development and Inovation, grant numbers: 451-03-34/2026-03/200134 and 451-03-33/2026-03/200134.

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