Detection of Aroma Active Components in Cheese by Gas Chromatography-Olfactometry (GC-O): A Brief Review

Cheese must be perceived as a dynamic ecosystem in a continuous flux between external factors, intrinsic factors such as the physico-chemical composition, and the interactions between the different microbial communities. Besides, the chemical environment together with extrinsic factors and physical handling, determines the microbiota that will be favored or suppressed during ripening, which deeply affects the cheese's aroma, flavor, texture, and appearance. Cheese aroma profile has been studied by gas chromatography-olfactometry (GC-O) for more than 30 years, demonstrating its relative importance as a useful tool to explain the products diversity and particularities because of the milk origin, milk type (whole, pasteurized, etc.), cheese variety, elaboration process, and ripening conditions. An inflexion in the literature on aroma of this dairy product is explained by revisions published at the beginning of the 2000s. In this study, a brief report on the information published during 2002-2022 (source: Google Scholar®) is presented focusing on key odorants components from different cheese varieties, the application of new sampling procedures and GC-O analysis to describe the aroma of types never assessed before with this approach, offering complementary data to sensory approaches.