Abstract
MICROORGANISMS IN COCOA BEANS DURING POST-HARVEST PROCESS AND DAMAGES CAUSED BY MICROORGANISMS: A REVIEW
*Elazmanawati Lembong, Edy Subroto, Mohamad Djali, Gemilang Lara Utama, Alda Marsha Maheswari
ABSTRACT
Cocoa (Theobroma cacao, L.) is a plantation crop that is the basis for making chocolate. To produce good quality cocoa beans, microorganisms must play the role of creating flavor precursors to improve the post-harvest cocoa process. In practice, some cocoa producers still do not correctly apply the pre-harvest and post-harvest processing stages, so the cocoa beans produced are dominated by unfermented cocoa beans, with high levels of bacterial, fungal, and mycotoxin contamination. This review aimed to know what microorganisms play a role in the post-harvest production stage of cocoa and the damage that can occur due to microorganisms at the pre-harvest and post-harvest processing stages. Microorganisms, whether bacteria, fungi, or yeast, are always involved in the processing of cocoa beans. Its role can help improve the quality of cocoa beans so that the final cocoa product has a distinctive taste such as yeast, lactic acid bacteria, and acetic acid bacteria. However, microorganisms also have a detrimental role at several processing stages, such as those caused by mycotoxins and bacterial pathogens.
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