The potential application of plant essential oils as natural food preservatives in soft cheese

Abstract

Investigations were carried out to assess the efficiency of four plantessentialoils; bay, clove, cinnamon and thyme as naturalfoodpreservatives. The effect of the plantessentialoils at concentrations of 0·1, 0·5 and 1% was studied in low-fat and full-fat softcheese against Listeria monocytogenes and Salmonella enteritidis at 4° and 10°C respectively, over a 14-day period. The composition of the cheese was shown to be an important factor in determining the effectiveness of the plantessentialoils. In the low-fat cheese, all four oils at 1% reduced L. monocytogenes to ≤1·0 log10cfu ml−1. In contrast, in the full-fat cheese, oil of clove was the only oil to achieve this reduction. Oil of thyme proved ineffective against S. enteritidis in the full-fat cheese, yet was equally as effective as the other three oils in the low-fat cheese, reducing S. enteritidis to ≤1·0 log10cfu ml−1from day 4 onwards. It is concluded that selected plantessentialoils can act as potent inhibitors of L. monocytogenes and S. enteritidis in a food product.