LAUSR

Abstract Antimicrobial edible coatings containing natural herbal extracts and essential oil possess various benefits and are currently used to design novel active biodegradable packaging. In this study, adaptive neuro fuzzy inference systems (ANFIS) model was used to predict the population of pathogenic microorganisms, chemical changes, and sensory characteristics of beef slices during 9- day storage period. First, Cumin essential oil (CEO) was incorporated into Shahri Balangu seed mucilage (SBM) to fabricate an active and eco-friendly edible coating for beef slice. Microbial populations (based on total viable count (TVC), psychrotrophic count, Escherichia coli, coliforms, Staphylococcus aureus, and mold and yeasts) and lipid oxidation of the coated beef reduced significantly during storage period, and this was more pronounced in SBM coatings containing higher CEO concentrations. The SBM-CEO edible coating had no adverse effects on the sensory characteristics and it conferred a better texture to the product as compared to the control sample. According to the TVC results, the shelf-life of beef samples coated with SBM, SBM+0.5%CEO, SBM+1%CEO, SBM+1.5%CEO, and SBM+2%CEO were 3, 6, 9, 9, and 9 days, respectively. The coating containing 2% Cumin essential oil conferred good quality characteristics to the beef and expanded its refrigeration shelf-life. The CEO enriched SBM could be therefore employed as an active packaging to ameliorate quality attribute and microbial safety of beef and other fresh food products. In addition, ANFIS model had high R2 values (>0.84), which indicated that the designed ANFIS model had enough accuracy for predicting the qualitative and microbial properties of coated beef during storage.