Microorganisms are the earliest form of life on earth, first evolving more than three billion years ago. Our ancestors discovered how to harness the power of microorganisms to make new foods, even if they did not know the science behind what they were doing.
Milestones
1665—Robert Hooke and Antoni Van Leeuwenhoek first observe and describe microorganisms.
1857–1876—Louis Pasteur proves the function of microorganisms in lactic and alcoholic fermentation.
1881—Emil Christian Hansen isolates Saccharomyces carlsbergensis, a pure yeast culture, which is today widely used in brewing of lager beers.
1889–1896—Herbert William Conn, Vilhelm Storch and Hermann Weigmann demonstrate that bacteria are responsible for the acidification of milk and of cream.
1897—Eduard von Freudenreich isolates Lactobacillus brevis.
1919—Sigurd Orla-Jensen classifies lactic acid bacteria on the basis of the bacteria's physiological response patterns.
Starting from 1970s—production of first industrial concentrated cultures, frozen or freeze-dried cultures, for the direct inoculation of processed milk, improving the regularity of production processes.