Potential impacts of edible coatings fortified by Moringa and /or Cedar extracts on quality and shelf life of chilled turkey fillets

Abstract

Edible coatings prolong product shelf life, reduce packaging waste, and actively preserve food quality, so they have a great deal of promise to promote sustainable food production. Its application is becoming an increasing research focus with the potential to enhance meat products' quality and shelf life. Thus, the current study's goal was to evaluate the impacts of duplicated Carboxymethylcellulose (CMC) and pullulan (Pu) edible coatings fortified by natural extracts; Moringa [(Moringa oleifera) (Mo)], Cedar [(Atlantic cedar) (Cd)], and mixture of them, on quality and shelf life of chill stored turkey fillet. Bacteriological (total bacterial, psychrotrophic, coliform, and Staphylococcus aureus counts), physicochemical (pH, TBA, and TVB-N), and sensory analysis (color, odor, texture, and overall acceptability) of coated groups showed a significant difference (P< 0.01) with control uncoated group. Among the treated samples, CMC: Pu incorporated with Moringa extract showed the highest reduction in aerobic plate count, as the mean count decreased from 6.05 ± 0.1 to 2.95 ± 0.1 (log cfu/gm) at the end of the storage period while psychrotrophic count, coliform count, and staphylococcus aureus count not be detected at 8th, 10th and 12th day of storage, respectively followed by CMC: Pu incorporated with mixture of Moringa and cedar extracts, then CMC: Pu incorporated with cedar. Furthermore, compared to the uncoated control samples, the rate of increase in pH, TBA, TMA, and TVB for all coated treatments was lower. Additionally, according to the sensory evaluation, the covered groups showed good quality and acceptability qualities. In general, the application of edible coating enriched with natural bioactive compounds improves the quality parameters and shelf life of chilled turkey fillets.