The impact of vegan production on the kimchi microbiome

Kimchi, a traditional Korean fermented food made from cabbage, radish, fermented seafood, and other ingredients, has long been a staple in Korean cuisine. In recent years, it has gained global popularity for its purported health benefits. Despite previous inquiry into the fermentative bacterial community of kimchi, there has been little insight into the impacts of starting ingredients on the inception and dynamics of the microbial community. Recently some industrial producers have begun to utilize fully vegan (no seafood-based ingredient) production methods. The community impacts of this change are unknown. In this study, we investigated the differences in the microbial communities of traditional non-vegan kimchi and vegan kimchi, prepared through quick fermentation at room temperature. We ascertained the impact of the constituent ingredients and the production facility on the initial microbial community of fermenting kimchi, in addition to tracking the community dynamics over the fermentation process. Our results indicated that the bacterial community of the prepared vegan product closely mirrors the progression and final structure of the final product. We also found that room temperature-fermented kimchi differs minimally from the more traditional cold-fermented (“winter”) kimchi variety. Finally, we found that the microbiome of the starting ingredients contains relatively low numbers of the lactic acid bacteria that make up the final product, whereas the production facility is dominated by kimchi bacteria.