Preservative Effect of Edible Chitosan Coated Liposomes Loaded with Natural Antimicrobial Agents in White Soft Cheese

Abstract

Plainly treated foods are highly recommended in the recent world, so edible packaging using encapsulated essential oils in biopolymers have afforded a premium and nontoxic food preservation technique. In this work, chitosan-based emulsions made of liposomes loaded with thyme essential oil were explored to lengthen the shelf-life of white soft cheese. Chitosan-based emulsions with TEO/liposomes, prepared by 2% wt/v chitosan solutions (CL-TEO), are active for 60 days. Antimicrobial activities were assessed via determination of total viable counts of Bacillus cereus (B. cereus) and Enterococcus faecium (E. faecium) over 4 weeks at refrigerated storage at 5 ºC. Cheese samples coated with CL-TEO 2% v/v and samples coated with CL-TEO 1% v/v plus nisin kept its satisfactory appearance, as well acceptable bacterial counts for 1 month at 5ºC. The results suggested that the formulated liposomal chitosan emulsions encapsulated TEO 2% v/v and liposomal chitosan emulsion encapsulated TEO 1% v/v plus nisin might be promising natural formulas to extend the shelf life in addition to preserving the flavour of white soft cheese.