Cultures (approx., 1 × 109 cfu/ml) were then divided into three fractions: (i) culture fractions were taken, supplemented with 3% (w/v) NaCl, and refrigerated until use as protective cultures; (ii) cell-free culture supernatants were obtained by culture centrifugation (12,000 rpm, 4 °C, 10 min), supplemented with 3% (w/v) NaCl, and kept at −20 °C until use as food ingredients, and (iii) aliquots of cell-free culture supernatants (CFS) were frozen at −40 °C, lyophilized with a Dura Dry II MP apparatus (Kinetics Group Inc., USA), supplemented with 3% (w/w) NaCl, and stored at room temperature until use as lyophilized food ingredients.