Bread crust samples coated with probiotic edible films were evaluated for their ability to stabilise probiotic cell viability under simulated gastrointestinal conditions (Fig. 7). Two systems of free bacteria (with or without added plain bread crust) harvested from MRS broth and washed with saline solution were subjected to invitro digestion in order to assess the impact of the edible film and bread crust matrix on the viability of probiotic cells. Our results showed that the presence of bread crust matrix does not provide any significant (p ¼ 0.46) protection of the free probiotic cells