**3. Applications of bacteriocins in food preservation**

Bacteriocins have been used in biopreservation of various foods, either alone or in combination with other methods of preservation, such as hurdle technology [19]. The criteria for the bacteriocins to be used for food preservation or food safety are [22, 23]:


Bacteriocins can be incorporated in foods either by inoculating directly into the food or incorporating in food packaging films/coatings, which will improve their activity or stability in complex food systems [24].

To protect the foods from contamination with certain microorganisms such as *Listeria monocytogenes* (pathogens in cheese) and *Streptococcus aureus* in dairy products [25] while in meat and fermented sausages, contamination of *Clostridium botulinum* [26–28] and other bacterial pathogens such as Campylobacter spp.,


#### **Table 2.**

*Bacteriocins-producing strains used as biopreservatives.*

*Bacteriocins: Applications in Food Preservation and Therapeutics DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.106871*


#### **Table 3.**

*Some commercialized bacteriocins.*

Salmonella spp., *Escherichia coli*, *Listeria monocytogenes*, *Staphylococcus aureus*, *Yersinia enterocolitica* [29]; some viral and parasitic species such as *Toxoplasma gondii* and *Taenia solium* [30], certain immobilized form of bacteriocins have been developed as antimicrobial packaging films [26–28].

#### **3.1 Bacteriocins as biopreservatives**

Some of the bacteriocin-producing strains are used as biopreservatives in food preservation but not marketed yet. These are shown in **Table 2**. There are other bacteriocins that have been proposed for industrial applications such as Enterocin AS-48 [26] and Lacticin 347 [41].

Till present, there are some bacteriocins that have been commercialized as food additives including nisin, with trade name Nisaplin andDanisco; pediocin A1, with trade name MicrogardTM and ALTA2431 [42]. The other commercialized bacteriocins active against certain food spoilage microorganisms are represented in **Table 3**.

#### **3.2 Bacteriocins as food additives**

Food additives are the substances added to food to maintain or improve the safety, freshness, taste, texture, or appearance. Food additives need to be checked for potential harmful effects on human health before they can be marketed [50]. Some of the bacteriocins that are applied as food additives are presented in **Table 4**.



#### **Table 5.**

*Bacteriocins in food packaging.*
