Ricotta whey supplemented with gelatin and collagen for the encapsulation of probiotic lactic acid bacteria

Abstract The aim of the present study was to evaluate the viability of probiotic bacteria Lactobacillus acidophilus (LA-5)® and Bifidobacterium lactis (BB-12)® encapsulation using spray drying (SD) with ricotta whey supplemented with gelatin and hydrolyzed collagen as encapsulating material. Following previous experiments, these gelatin:collagen ratios were defined: 7:3 (gelatin:collagen) for L. acidophilus LA-5 and 9:1 for B. lactis BB-12, which had reduced bacterial counts of 0.46 and 1.26 log Colony-Forming Units (CFU)/g, respectively. There was a viability loss of 0.70 log CFU/g and 0.34...