(Wiley, 2019) Otero Tuárez, Víctor Oswaldo; Carrión Granda, Ximena; Fernández Pan, Idoya; Fernández García, Teresa; Maté Caballero, Juan Ignacio; Agronomía, Biotecnología y Alimentación; Agronomia, Bioteknologia eta Elikadura
Two distinct strategies were combined to preserve fresh fish (Merluccius merluccius) under refrigeration at 4 °C for 12 days: (i) the application of an antimicrobial edible coating enriched with oregano essential oil (OEO) or carvacrol (CV) and (ii) the reduction of initial microbial load by good handling practise and
the use of sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl). The action of antimicrobial coatings alone retarded the growth
of Enterobacteriaceae, lactic acid bacteria (LAB) and H2S producing bacteria on fish samples. The reduction of initial microbial load by itself only affected the evolution of LAB, but not the rest of the bacterial groups. When using both techniques combined, edible antimicrobial coatings were significantly more effective with additional and significant delays in the growth of mesophilic, psychrotrophic and Pseudomonas bacteria. Thus, the use of both strategies combined resulted in a reduction of the counts of all bacterial groups after 12 days of storage which ranged from 1.5 log and 8 log, in Pseudomonas and H2S producing bacteria, respectively. Moreover, no significant differences were observed when comparing the microbiological evolution of samples treated with OEO compared to those only treated with CV.
