Fabrication and characterization of pullulan/tapioca starch-based antibacterial films incorporated with Litsea cubeba essential oil for meat preservation.

Active packaging is a novel technology that utilizes active materials to interact with products and the environment, improving food shelf life. The purpose of this work was to fabricate a multifunctional film using Litsea cubeba essential oil (LC-EO) (1 %, 3 %, 5 %, and 7 %) as the active ingredient and pullulan(P)/tapioca starch (TS) as the carrier material. Adding essential oil improves the films properties, such as barrier ability, anti-oxidant, and antibacterial activity. However, tensile strength (TS) and elongation at break (EAB) were slightly reduced from 28.94 MPa to 11.29 MPa and 15.36 % to 12.19 %. The developed PTS films showed the best performance in mechanical properties, especially EAB (14.26 %), WVP (3.26 %) and OP (3.13 %), respectively. The inhibitory zone diameters in the agar-well diffusion test were 18.59 mm for Staphylococcus aureus and 17.32 mm for Escherichia coli. Further study was conducted to compare the preservation effects of film with low-density polyethylene bag (LDPE) on chilled beef. Remarkably, PTS film decreased the bacterial population in beef meat while maintaining the pH, color, texture, and TBARS levels within an acceptable range for ten days of storage at 4 °C rather than in a low-density polyethylene bag. The outcomes indicated the potential of PTS films in food packaging applications.