Abstract #526

# 526
Interactions of production environment microbiota with food and beverage fermentations: Lessons for cheese production.
D. A. Mills*1, 1Department of Food Science & Technology, University of California, Davis, CA.

Cheese production is a useful model to study food ecosystem dynamics as these fermented products illustrate opposing roles of adventitious microbes involved—as spoilage agents and as beneficial members of the microbial consortium—both of which influence final product quality. Recently, application of rRNA marker gene surveys to define the modes of microbial transmission across space and time in cheese production has provided unique insight into these important commercial fermentations. Cheese fermentations are well known to be initiated by starter cultures, however recent studies suggest that adventitious microbiota is influenced by environmental factors thus potentially contributing to the “regional character” often attributed to specific products. Moreover, advances in sensor technology now allows simultaneous monitoring of food production facilities for various environmental parameters including: temperature, relative humidity, volatile organic carbon, CO2, dust accumulation and human traffic. Integration of sensor data with microbiota surveys provides unique insight into mechanisms of microbial dispersal and persistence throughout seasonal or process-related environmental changes. Elucidating microbial ecosystems and spatial characteristics present in cheese production environments identifies the fundamental drivers of microbial biogeography with practical implications for all food production systems.

Key Words: cheese, microbiota, environment

Speaker Bio
David A. Mills is a Professor in the Department of Food Science & Technology at the University of California. Dr. Mills studies the biology and ecology of bacteria that play a role in gut health or fermented foods—publishing more than 150 papers, including seminal work on lactic acid bacterial genomics and the microbial ecology of food systems. In 2010 Dr. Mills was awarded the Cargill Flavor Systems Specialties Award from the ADSA. In 2012 he was named the Shields Chair in Dairy Food Science and in 2015 he was elected a Fellow in the American Academy of Microbiology.