Among the traditional fermented foods, table olives could be a promising probiotic food through the use of functional probiotic starter cultures. Functional starter cultures contribute to microbial safety and offer organoleptic, technological, nutritional or health advantages. In contrast to well-adapted industrial starters, wild-type strains that naturally dominate traditional fermentations tend to have higher metabolic capacities, which can beneficially affect product quality, for instance with regard to aroma formation and/or food safety. Natural selection is likely to have forced such strains to be more competitive by endowing them with ecological advantages