Four Brawijaya University (UB) students from the Faculty of Fisheries and Marine Sciences (FPIK), Faculty of Agricultural Technology (FTP), and Faculty of Engineering (FT) succeeded in making a plastic replacement formulation from starch and carrageenan with the addition of L. plantarum bacteriocin as an anti-microorganism.
In the 2023 Student Creativity Program (PKM) research activities funded by Directorate of Higher Education, four students Etika Restiany, Anggriana Nurhastari, Debora Marpaung, and Kautsar Ali under the guidance of lecturer Heder Djamaludin S. Pd., M. Si., researched the level of effectiveness of bacteriocins from Lactobacillus plantarum in starch and carrageenan edible films.
Edible packaging is a thin layer on edible food which functions as a protector or barrier between the food and the environment and protects against mass transfer such as moisture, light, lipids, oxygen and dissolved substances and improves the handling of a product.
Despite its advantages, edible film has characteristics that are less effective in maintaining food quality from microorganism interference. This results in edible film not being able to maintain the quality of food, especially fresh food, from spoilage microorganisms.
The addition of antimicrobials to edible film formulations can increase the ability of edible films to protect packaged products from damage caused by microorganisms.
“Damage can be caused by high activity of microorganisms, so it can be prevented by adding natural antimicrobial compounds in the form of bacteriocins from L. plantarum,” explained Etika Restiany as the Team Leader.
“Research means that you don’t know, but are willing to find out”, this sentence is a motivation for the team in answering the problem of waste that accumulates every day. They hope to see the next generations continue this research. [*/Irene/ UB PR/ Trans. Iir]
