Effect of probiotic edible coatings on the nutritional and biochemical properties of edam-type cheese

Improving the nutritional quality of semi-hard cheese through functional ingredients is a growing focus in dairy research. Edible coatings containing probiotic-type bacteria offer a promising strategy to enhance cheese composition and digestibility during ripening. In this study, in vitro digestion simulations of ripened Edam-type cheese samples (control, coated with liquid acid whey protein concentrate (LAWPC) coating, and coated with LAWPC coating containing Lacticaseibacillus paracasei A11 at approximately 7 log10 CFU/g) were performed using the standardized static method (Minekus et al., 2014), combined with size exclusion chromatography for the evaluation of digested protein concentration. Volatile fatty acids (VFA) were quantified by gas chromatography and expressed as percentages of total volatile fatty acids (% of total VFA). After 45 days of ripening, digestion results showed that the soluble protein fraction ranged from 189.2 mg in cheese coated with LAWPC + A11 to 191.1 mg in cheese coated with plain LAWPC and 195.4 mg in control, corresponding to 80.3%, 77.5%, and 76.7% of total soluble protein, respectively. The degree of simulated enzymatic cheese digestion increased significantly from 66.1% in the control cheese to 66.9% in the cheese coated with plain LAWPC coating, and further to 69.4% in the cheese coated with LAWPC + A11 (p < 0.001), demonstrating enhanced enzymatic breakdown due to probiotic incorporation. Moreover, VFA analysis revealed no significant differences among most VFA, except for a significant decrease in lauric acid in cheese coated with LAWPC + A11 (3.09% ± 0.12) compared to cheese with plain LAWPC-coated (3.21% ± 0.01) and control (3.21% ± 0.14) cheeses (p < 0.05), suggesting a beneficial shift toward a healthier fatty acid profile. These results demonstrate that edible coatings, particularly the LAWPC + A11 formulation, enhanced nutritional quality, protein solubilization, and digestibility, highlighting their potential as an effective strategy to improve the properties of cheese.