Changes in the quality and microbial compositions of ground beef packaged on food absorbent pads incorporated with levulinic acid and sodium dodecyl sulfate

Abstract

In this study, changes in the quality attributes (i.e., drip loss and color) and microbial compositions by both culture dependent and independent methods of ground beef packaged with food absorbent pads incorporating levulinic acid (LVA) plus sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) during a week of 4 °C storage were investigated. The pads containing LVA/SDS shown potent decontamination of tested microorganisms, including total aerobic counts (TAC), Enterobacteriaceae, Pseudomonas, and psychrotrophs, with a growth prevention of 6.0, >4.3, 8.6, and 8.5 log CFU/g in the pads at the end of the storage, respectively. Compared to the beef on the control pads, 1.0, 2.6, 4.3, and 2.9 log CFU/g lower counts of the abovementioned bacteria, respectively, in the beef on the LVA/SDS treated pads were recovered based on the culture dependent methods. The 16S rRNA amplicon high throughput sequencing analysis indicated that Pseudomonas, Acinetobacter and Photobacterium were the dominant genera in the beef at the end of the storage, and the pads containing LVA/SDS modified the microbial compositions which exhibited more microbial diversity than the control. The antimicrobial efficacy of the two compounds was nearly maintained during the whole storage time. Therefore, pads incorporating LVA plus SDS showed a potential to be an effective bactericide applied in antimicrobial active packaging.