Use of commercial starter cultures in combination with nontraditional
starter cultures have been reported to provide extra VTEC
reductions during DFS production (Muthukumarasamy and Holley,
2007; Pidcock et al., 2002). Prior to the presently reported study, we
tested nine commercial starter cultures for growth, pH decline and
VTEC reductions during salami fermentation (results not shown).
Despite variations in the onset of fermentation and differences in pH
decline rate between the starter cultures, the final pH after
fermentation was similar in all cases. No significant differences in
VTEC reductions in identical batters added different starter cultures
were observed and starter culture was not included as a design
variable in the experimental set-up.