2020 - Rollini
From cheese whey permeate to Sakacin-A/bacterial cellulose nanocrystal conjugates for antimicrobial food packaging applications: a circular economy case study
Rollini M., Musatti A., Cavicchioli D., Bussini D., Farris S., Rovera C., Romano D., De Benedetti S., Barbiroli A.
Class IIa bacteriocins have a strong anti-Listeria activity; however, low production yield and high purification costs restrict their use. Cheese whey permeate (CWP) is obtained by whey ultrafiltration for protein recovery, and likely represents the very last by-product of dairy industry. In this work, by applying a circular economy approach, CWP was used as cheap substrate for the production of Sakacin-A bacteriocin and bacterial cellulose (BC), to produce a new antimicrobial active packaging against Listeria monocytogenes in Ready-To-Eat food items.
The growth of Komagataeibacter xylinus (BC producer) and of Lactobacillus sakei (Sakacin-A producer) have been optimized on CWP-based broth. Partially purified Sakacin-A has been conjugated to BC nanocrystals (BCNCs) and included in a coating mixture applied onto paper sheets. The obtained antimicrobial food-packaging material was found effective in reducing Listeria population in storage trials carried out on a fresh Italian soft cheese (named “stracchino”). Estimated lab-scale cost is 1.70 €/A4 sheet, but may decrease to 0.84 €/A4 sheet for scale economies.
This investigation is a practical example of a circular economy approach in which a food industry by-product is used to produce antimicrobials for food preservation.
This work was supported by Fondazione Cariplo (2015-0464 Nanosak - Nanocellulose-sakacin A conjugates for food packaging purposes).
