Improvement of oxidative stability, microbiological and sensory properties, and shelf life of chicken breast meat using <i>Artemisia fragrans</i> essential oil-loaded oleogel coating

Abstract The effects of oleogel coating with Artemisia fragrans essential oil (AFEO) (0.5, 1, and 1.5%), on physicochemical, microbiological and quality attributes of chicken meat were investigated. Four treatment groups were evaluated: uncoated chicken, and oleogel coatings containing 0.5%, 1%, or 1.5% AFEO. All chicken meats were stored under refrigerated storage (4 °C) for 12 days. The present study showed that oleogel coating + AFEO had no significant effect on the chemical composition (protein, ash, fat and water content). Incorporation of AFEO into the oleogel coating resulted in a remarkable decrease (P &amp;lt; 0.05) in TVB-N, pH and TBARS values and an increase in total phenolic content at the end of the storage period. The results of microbiological analysis indicated that coliforms, total viable count (TVC), yeasts and molds were significantly (P &amp;lt; 0.05) lower in all treated meats, especially in the coated sample with OG-AFEO 1.5% (2.23, 5.43, and 3.97 Log CFU/g, respectively, compared to 7.38, 8.05, and 6.86 Log CFU/g in uncoated samples) at the end of storage. Based on the standards for fresh poultry, OG-AFEO 1.5% maintained microbial counts within acceptable limits up to day 8. Furthermore, the acceptable TVB-N limit for freshness (25 mg/100 g) was exceeded by the uncoated chicken on day 5, whereas the OG-AFEO 1.5% coated sample remained below this limit until day 8 (20.74 mg/100 g). The textural analysis also showed that increasing the AFEO concentration can potentially increase the hardness values of meat samples. The sensory results indicated that coated samples had higher overall acceptability scores compared to uncoated meat. Therefore, the present work evaluated the performance of oleogel coating with AFEO in improving the storage quality of chicken meat to develop efficient and novel coating for meat and meat products.