PRODUCTION OF ADDED ACTIVE FILM FOR ESSENTIAL OIL FOR CHEESE CONSERVATION

Resumo

There is a growing use of raw materials from renewable resources for packaging production. Promising bipolymers for this purpose include starches that can come from various botanical sources, which are biodegradable, inexpensive, and available in many parts of the world. Biodegradable active packaging, in addition to preserving the sensory and nutritional characteristics of food, aims at environmental preservation and the replacement of plastics from petroleum sources. Cheese is a vehicle of disease transmission, as is the case with food poisoning, so care must be taken from production to storage. Thus, the work aimed to produce biodegradable film incorporated with oregano essential oil to prolong the shelf life of provolone cheese at room temperature. The films were manufactured with 1.5% modified starch and gelatin concentrations, 3% glycerol and corn starch and different concentrations of oregano essential oil were tested. Physicochemical parameters were tested at times 0, 7 and 15 days. Microbiological analyzes were performed at times 0, 7 and 15 days to evaluate the efficiency of the essential oil with antimicrobial action for total coliform, thermotolerant coliforms, Escherichia coli, Salmonella, Staphylococcus aureus and filamentous fungi. The work concluded that the film formed a barrier to microbial activity since there was no growth for all microorganisms analyzed. For the mass loss parameter the film showed no efficiency.