The inoculum was prepared by transferring 100 μl glycerol stock to 100 ml of sterile lactobacillus MRS broth (Hi-Media, India) in 250 ml Erlenmeyer flask and incubated at 37 °C for 24 h. Cells were harvested in a sterile centrifuge tube (15 ml) by centrifugation at 9000g for 10 min. The pellet obtained was resuspended in sterile distilled water to adjust the optical density to 1.0 at 660 nm. One milliliter of thus prepared inoculum was transferred to 100 ml of production media.