Use of various essential oils as bio preservatives and their effect on the quality of vacuum packaged fresh chicken sausages under frozen conditions

- Cassia, Holy basil, Clove and Thyme essential oil are promising alternatives to synthetic anti-oxidants in meat.
- Minimum Inhibitory Concentration of selected 9 oils was determined and screened for incorporation in chicken sausages.
- Fresh chicken sausages were treated with optimized level of four essential oils.
- Vacuum packaged products were assessed for quality changes at freezing temperature for 45 days.
- Treatment products exhibited better anti microbial and anti oxidant activity.

The present study was undertaken to evaluate antimicrobial and antioxidant effect of essential oils on the quality of fresh chicken sausages. Total 15 essential oils (EOs) were screened for their antimicrobial activity; however only 9 EOs showed desired results in disc diffusion assay. It was found that four essential oils namely, clove oil (0.25%), holy basil oil (0.125%), cassia oil (0.25%) and thyme oil (0.125%) could pass sensory evaluation. Fresh chicken sausages incorporated with these EOs were vacuum packaged and stored at −18 ± 2 °C for 45 days. Control had significantly higher pH and TBARS than EO treated products and clove oil products showed least rate of increase of oxidation. Total phenolics and DPPH activity was significantly higher in treatment products than control. Treatment products showed slower rate of increase in microbial count than control and cassia oil products showed lowest microbial load at end of storage period. Regarding sensory attributes, cassia and holy basil products yielded comparably higher scores. Thus, present study indicates that all vacuum packaged frozen fresh chicken sausages were found quite acceptable even at the end of storage period of 45 days.