Food industry employs various physical and chemical methods to control fungal contamination of food
products. However, many fungal strains are defiant to these techniques as a result of various resistance
mechanisms they acquired with time. The synergistic actions of various antimicrobial compounds produced
by lactic acid bacteria (LAB) prevent the growth of food spoilage bacteria and fungi. Antimicrobial
peptides and phenolic compounds from LAB have been successfully applied in wheat grain preservation
against fungi. Bread made from sourdoughs fermented with various LAB strains is found to prevent or
delay fungal attack. Apart from the mycotoxin removal, some of these bioactive from LAB have antioxidant
and anti-cancer potential and it further enhances nutritional value and safety of food products. This
review focuses on recent research developments on the bioactive potential of compounds from LAB as
well as the commercially available protective cultures and biopreservatives based on LAB and thus tried
to substantiate its status as protective culture.