a
University of Foggia, Via Napoli, 25-71100 Foggia, Italy
Department of Materials Engineering and Production, University of Naples Federico II, P.le Tecchio, 80-80125 Naples, Italy
Abstract
In this work a new method is proposed to produce oxygen-scavenger lms using aerobic microorganisms as the active
compound. The manufacturing cycle of the investigated oxygen-scavenger lm was optimized both to prolong the microorganisms
viability during storage and to improve the efciency of the lm to remove oxygen from the package headspace. It was found that it
is possible to store the desiccated lm over a period of 20 days without monitoring any appreciable decrease of microorganism
viability. It was also pointed out that the highest respiratory efciency of the proposed active lm is obtained by entrapping the
microorganisms into polyvinyl alcohol, and by using the active lm as a coating for a high humidity food.
r 2003 Swiss Society of Food Science and Technology. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Aerobic microorganisms; Environment-friendly materials; Oxygen scavengers; Food preservation
1. Introduction
Active packaging is an emerging and exciting area of
food packaging technology that can confer many
preservation benets to a wide range of foods (Day,
1998). In fact, in many cases food deterioration is caused
by oxidation reactions or by the presence of spoilage
aerobic microorganisms. For instance, to prolong the
shelf-life of dairy and bakery products it is of primary
importance to slow down the growth rate of molds and
aerobic bacteria. Also, to prevent damages of a wide
range of food it is necessary to reduce the deterioration
rate of constituents, such as oils, fats, pigments and
vitamins (Gill & McGinnes, 1995; Schozen, Ohshima,
Ushio, Takigichi, & Koizumi, 1997; Berenzon & Saguy,
1998). In all these cases oxygen scavengers are successfully used to prolong the shelf-life of packed food, by
reducing the oxygen concentration in the package
headspace.
Different kinds of oxygen scavengers are commercially available, and most of them are based on the
oxidation reaction of iron (Nakamura & Hoshino, 1983;
Smith, Ramaswarmy, & Simpson, 1990). A real risk in
using this type of oxygen scavenger could be an
accidental ingestion of a large amount of iron (Labuza,
1987). A different type of oxygen scavenger is that using
the enzyme reaction surface. The main shortcoming with
this type of oxygen scavengers is their sensitivity to
physicalchemical factors (pH, aw, salt concentration,
temperature) and they cannot be effectively used for
low-water foodstuffs (Graff, 1994). Ascorbate oxidation, photo-sensitive dye oxidation, unsaturated fatty
acid, immobilized yeast on a solid surface (Floros,
Dock, & Han, 1997) are further concepts in this type of
packaging technology. Most of the oxygen scavengers
reported above are available in form of sachet to be
introduced into the package. An alternative to the
sachet is the incorporation of the active compound into
the packaging structure itself. An example is Oxyguard
(Tokyo Seikan Kaisha, Japan), incorporated into a
laminate.
Other researchers proposed an alternative approach:
the use of entrapped aerobic microorganisms, capable of
0023-6438/03/$30.00 r 2003 Swiss Society of Food Science and Technology. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/S0023-6438(03)00115-4
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8.0
6.0
log(CFU)
log(CFU)
2.0
0
(a)
4.0
0.0
20
10
Time [day]
10
15
20
Time [day]
(b)
8.0
log(CFU)
6.0
4.0
2.0
0.0
(c)
10
20
Time [day]
Fig. 1. Log(cfu) plotted as a function of time for microorganism A entrapped in HEC (HEC concentration in the casting solution equal to 6 g/100 g).
(a) Carbon source concentration in the casting solution equal to 4 g/L; (b) carbon source concentration in the casting solution equal to 8 g/L; and
(c) carbon source concentration in the casting solution equal to 16 g/L. The curves showed in the gure dont represent any model, they only facilitate the reading of the data.
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log(CFU)
6.0
4.0
2.0
0.0
(a)
10
15
20
Time [day]
log(CFU)
4
0
(b)
10
20
Time [day]
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6
log(CFU)
log(CFU)
2
0
(a)
10
15
20
10
Time [day]
(b)
Time [day]
15
20
log(CFU)
0
(c)
10
Time [day]
15
20
Fig. 3. Log(cfu) plotted as a function of time for microorganism B entrapped in HEC (HEC concentration in the casting solution equal to 6 g/100 g).
(a) carbon source concentration in the casting solution equal to 10 g/L; (b) carbon source concentration in the casting solution equal to 20 g/L;
(c) carbon source concentration in the casting solution equal to 30 g/L. The curves showed in the gure do not represent any model, they only
facilitate the reading of the data.
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25
6
[O2]/[CO2]
log(CFU)
20
4
15
10
5
10
Time [day]
(a)
15
20
8
12
Time [day]
16
20
8
6
log(CFU)
4. Conclusions
2
0
(b)
10
Time [day]
15
20
[O2]/[CO2]
10
15
Time [day]
20
25
Acknowledgements
The work was funded under the MURST Piani di
Potenziamento della Ricerca Scientica e Tecnologica.
References
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The quantitative determination of the factors controlling the oxygen consumption rate goes beyond the aim
of this work; hence, it will be not addressed in the
present work.
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