Biodegradable food packaging membrane from bacterial cellulose and bacteriocin for preserving raw food

Abstract

Raw foods such as fish and meat sold at local markets are easily pathogenically infected because retailers do not keep them in proper food preservation equipment. In addition, food packaging using single-use plastic grocery bags is a burden for waste management and aggravates the “white pollution”. In this research, we created biodegradable bacterial cellulose membrane (BCm) loaded with raw bacteriocins that were collected from isolated lactic acid bacteria (LAB) and test their ability to preserveraw fish and meat. The 2mm thick and 94% wet BC membrane was obtained from the surface fermentation of Acetobacterxylinum in the medium containing 50% of coconut water and 15% sucrose after 03 days. The isolated LAB from sour cabbage, kimchi and yogurt were microscopically observed, biochemically characterized and species identified by mass spectrometry. The raw bacteriocin from Lactobacillus plantarum showing the most antimicrobial capability among the isolates could inhibit the growth of 3 tested strains of Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus and Bacillus subtilis at the antimicrobial activity of 100 AU/ml by agar-well diffusion method. BCm treated with the bacteriocins of 100 AU/ml in 45 minutes was proved to be able to well preserve fish for 24 hours and pork for 18 hours at ambient temperatures, following Vietnam Standard for catfish fillet (TCVN 8338:2010) and for meat (TCVN 7046:2009).