Relating starter cultures to volatile profile and potential markers in green Spanish-style table olives by compositional data analysis

Abstract

This work relates native lactic acid bacteria (LAB) (Lactobacillus pentosus LPG1, L. pentosus Lp13, and Lactobacillus plantarum Lpl15) and yeast (Wickerhamomyces anomalus Y12) starters to the volatile components (VOCs) produced in green Spanish-style table olives. For this aim, the VOC profile was considered as compositional data (CoDa). The CoDa analysis generated new information on the relationship among inocula and VOCs through the tetrahedral plot, CoDa-biplot, variation array matrix, and CoDa dendrogram. The ilr (which includes pivot) coordinates (Euclidean space) from VOCs produced more reliable starters’ clustering than the original data. The potential VOC markers, identified by a test based on the pairwise comparison of the logratio variation arrays from the whole data set and the individual groups, were (starters in the parenthesis): 2-phenylethyl acetate (LPG1, Y12, Y12 + LAB), methanol (Lpl15), cis-2-penten-1-ol (LPG1, Y12, Y12 + LAB), 2-methyl-3-hexanol (LPG1, Y12), U (non-identified) C (m/z 83-112-97) (Y12) and UF (m/z 95-154-110) (LPG1, Y12 + LAB). Besides, some VOCs were partial/totally inhibited by specific starters: 2-methyl-1-propanol (Lp13, Y12 + LAB), 2-phenyl ethanol (Lp13), furfuryl methyl ether (Y12 + LAB), purpurocatechol (Y12, Y12 + LAB), 4-ethyl guaiacol (Lp13, Lpl15), 4-ethyl phenol (Lpl15), 5-tert-butylpyrogallol (Lp13, Lpl15), and UE (m/z 111–198) (Lp13). A better understanding of the relationship between starters and their VOC may facilitate modelling the flavour and quality of Spanish-style green table olive fermentations.