Antimicrobial effect of essential oils and terpenes coupled with supercritical carbon dioxide for chicken meat preservation

This study was focused on technological strategies to increase the shelf life of chicken breast meat by using supercritical carbon dioxide (sc-CO2) and antimicrobial natural substances, i.e. lemon, coriander and basil essential oil and their relative terpenes (linalool and limonene). The synergism was demonstrated on the inactivation of Gram-positive (Listeria innocua and Enterococcus faecium) and Gram-negative bacteria (Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas fluorescens). A higher inactivation was observed when 1% terpenes were used in combination with sc-CO2 (14 MPa and 40 °C for 15 min) achieving 3.05 and 2.91 log cfu/g reduction for E. coli using limonene and linalool respectively. Similar results with the same sc-CO2 treatment were obtained also for Pseudomonas fluorescens (2.51 and 3.18 log cfu/g inactivation) and Enterococcus faecium (1.47 and 2.06 log cfu/g inactivation) using limonene and linalool, respectively. The mesophilic load of samples treated with 1% terpenes and sc-CO2 after 9 days of storage at 4 °C was below 7 log cfu/g (6.55 and 5.63 cfu/g for limonene and linalool, respectively). These results promise interesting developments through the preservation of fresh chicken meat.