Microbiological Characterization of Greek Galotyri Cheese PDO Products Relative to Whether They Are Marketed Fresh or Ripened
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors presented interesting manuscript, however some points should be adressed:
1. Line 33 - please use subscript for "w" in "aw"
2. what do you mean "harmless"?
3. Table 2 - please indicate statistical differences
4. The conclusions section is actually mixed with discussion - please clarify the main findings of your work here.
5. How the microbial composition and ripening stage influence the physicochemial and sensorial characteristics of Galotyri cheese? How does the set of microorganisms affect ripening processes, including proteolysis processes?
Author Response
Dear Reviewer_1
Thanks for your review. Please refer to the PDF file with our responses.
John Samelis
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper is not suitable for publication in Fermentation, since it is a descriptive and preliminary study. The main criticism relies on the methods applied. The identification has been achieved through a phenotypic characterization. Moreover, the obtained data do not provide additional information about cheese microbiological characterization.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer_2
Thanks for your review. Please refer to the attached PDF file with our responses.
John Samelis
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The paper under consideration intends again to make a comparison of the microbial communities in Galotyri cheese, a PDO cheese from Greece, in the fresh and ripened cheese varieties. The study is based on a comparison between 4 batches of commercial cheese, 2 of fresh cheese (only one brand) and 2 of cured cheese (only one brand), with different production dates and with different marketing time or ripening period between batches of each type. In this paper, the authors withdraw the comparison between results obtained by culture-dependent methodologies and culture-independent methodologies – NGS, what is beneficial for the article, thus simplifying the presentation and discussion of the results as suggested before.
The article is well structured although showing again an important limitation. It is based again on only 2 commercial batches of each type of cheese, clearly scarce in view of the variability of manufacturing and handling conditions that the authors themselves mention and that the results show. This fact leads to the interesting but not new evolution of the main microbial groups in the two types of cheese, particularly in ripened cheese, but pointing out important differences between the 2 batches of each type of cheese, indicating different practices that should be evaluated on a larger scale. The effort to simplify the presentation and discussion of the results is appreciated but although maintained the scarce novelty of the results, and the well-known conclusion that ripening leads to a more complex cheese microbiota than fresh cheese due to NSLAB and yeasts genus, and that the microbiota is dominated by the type of starter used.
These are the most relevant generic comments about the submitted paper. The main suggestions is to extend the sampling plan by adding more cheese samples and, ideally, get samples of fresh and ripened cheeses from the same manufacturer.
It will also be welcome composition and nutritional data from the cheese samples instead of only data from the nutritional information.
Further detailed suggestions are as following:
Table 2 – Please add note identifying the meaning of the superscript letters; the statistical significances are mentioned in the text (lines 260-280) but they are not identified in Table 2.
Lines 810-820 -. In these lines the effect of the type of cheese is confused with the effect of the brand, which results from the coincidence of brands with only one type of cheese each. Please clarify this at least here but also all over the conclusions.
Lines 833-837 – Please revise this part of the conclusions as the probiotic potential was not studied in this work.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer_3
Thanks for your review. Please refer to the attached PDF file with our responses.
John Samelis
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors have adressed all suggestions.
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper is not suitable for publication in Fermentation, since it is a descriptive and preliminary study. The main criticism relies on the methods applied.
Reviewer 3 Report
I have no further comments or suggestions for the authors.
