This may be simply due to moisture loss of cheese during storage, because the more moisture present at any pH, the softer in texture hardness is the cheese (Lawrence, Creamer & Gilles, 1987). In the present study, LAB incorporated samples demonstrated higher texture harness values compared to other samples throughout the storage period. It was apparent that LAB was also responsible for the relatively higher pH decrease in LAB incorporated cheese samples. This might have been con- tributed to increase the texture hardness in LAB incorporated cheese samples, because the texture of a cheese is determined primarily by its pH and the ratio of intact casein to moisture. The pH in cheese is particularly important to texture because changes in pH are related directly to chemical changes in the protein net- work of the cheese curd. As the pH of the cheese curd decreases, there is a concomitant loss