Liu Liu;Kong BaoHua;Diao XinPing;Liu Jing

;College of Food Science, Northeast Agricultural University, Harbin 150030, China.

antibacterial properties;cinnamon;cloves;culinary herbs;culture media;food additives;food contamination;food microbiology;food preservatives;growth;growth;microbial contamination;pigmeat;rosemary;cinnamomum;cinnamomum zeylanicum;listeria monocytogenes;rosmarinus officinalis;syzygium aromaticum

This study investigated the growth of Listeria monocytogenes on chilled pork and the effect of herbal preservatives on this pathogen. The growth inhibitory properties of herbal preservatives were identified. The minimum inhibitory concentrations (MIC) of cinnamon and clove were at 0.79 mg/ml, while that of rosemary was 1.58 mg/ml. The composite herbal preservatives were submitted to an orthogonal experiment. The optimum proportion on agar medium was 1.16 mg/ml cinnamon + 2.38 mg/ml rosemary + 3.17 mg/ml clove (herb combination number 5). On chilled pork, a strong inhibition against L. monocytogenes was shown. The results demonstrated that the surface application of herb combinations results to an effective delay of L. monocytogenes growth.