Combined Microbiological Tools to Assess the Suitability of Lactic Acid Bacteria Cell-Free Supernatant as a Bio-Preservative in Ready-to-Eat Orange Against Wild Staphylococcus aureus and Bacillus cereus Isolates

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors

I consider this work to meet all the requirements for publication, including methodological quality. Its contribution to the field of food microbiology and food science and technology is valuable.

Overall, the manuscript demonstrates coherence, correct syntax, organization, and innovation. This research contributes positively to the development of natural and sustainable preservatives with a lower impact on consumer health in the agri-food industry.

Below are suggestions to improve the quality of your manuscript:

Line 79: I suggest specifying the type of characterization (phylogenetic, biochemical/phenotypic, etc.).

Lines 130-131: I recommend including the primers used in the supplementary material and referencing them in the corresponding text to ensure reproducibility.

Lines 170-174: If possible, indicate the variety of the orange species.

Figure 1: I suggest modifying the graph so that the number of days is not hidden by the bars. Also, please include the units of measurement for the X and Y axes (days and Log CFU/g).

Table 5: I recommend citing Table 5 in the manuscript text, as it is currently unavailable.

Discussion: I suggest expanding the discussion on changes or absence of these in the physicochemical parameters evaluated, as this could be useful for inferring the effect of bacteria and CFS on quality attributes such as organoleptic properties (color, firmness) and pH (related to flavor).

Conclusions and future perspectives: I recommend delving into the future perspectives and limitations of the study, for example: evaluating the potential adverse effects of using probiotic bacteria metabolite concentrates in humans and different food matrices; evaluating these ferments and their metabolites against other probiotic strains and other potentially pathogenic bacteria (including mycotoxin-producing and -degrading fungi). In addition, I suggest briefly mentioning the feasibility or the path to scaling the study to a real industrial application in the horticultural agri-food industry.

Kind regards

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Paper: “Combined microbiological tools to assess the suitability of lactic acid bacteria cell-free supernatant as a bio-preservative in ready-to-eat orange against wild Staphylococcus aureus and Bacillus cereus isolates”

by Russo et al., Fermentation

General comments: The manuscript addresses a highly relevant topic in the field of food safety, proposing an innovative approach based on the use of cell-free supernatants from autochthonous lactic acid bacteria as biopreservative agents for ready-to-eat fruit products. The combined use of culture-based and molecular methods (qPCR) is well-structured and adds robustness to the findings. However, the text contains some linguistic and structural inaccuracies that affect clarity, and certain methodological and interpretative sections require further elaboration. Overall, the study is promising after these few revisions.

Major comments:

1. Review the English in the text.
2. The abstract is very clear, but more results should be presented. I therefore suggest revising it by shortening the initial introduction.

Minor comments:

1. Check in the text whether certain words are superscript or subscript.
2. Insert experimental plan in graphic form to better understand the organization of the work.
3. In line 81, “and” has been repeated.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Review the English in the text.

Author Response

PLease see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have included all the suggestions provided to them, although I do not see the experimental plan in graphic form. Nevertheless, the work is definitely more complete.