Anthocyanin-sensitized gelatin-ZnO nanocomposite based film for meat quality assessment.

Meat is considered a highly perishable food, and the interest in developing tools to monitor meat quality products has increased these years. A novel gelatin-ZnO-anthocyanin ternary nanocomposite film is proposed as a sensitive layer to meat quality monitoring in the present work. The incorporation of anthocyanin (ATH) on gelatin-ZnO (G-ZnO) film induced a sensitivity improvement of films towards ammonia vapor according to impedance measurements. G-ZnO-ATH film presented a good response (38.69 %) to the presence of ammonia vapor at 300 ppm. Also, good selectivity for ammonia was observed in the films. G-ZnO-ATH, applied to minced meat's quality monitoring at different storage conditions, showed a good performance, with a significant (p < 0.05) non-linear Spearman correlation between the response and the total volatile basic nitrogen released during meat spoilage for both storage conditions. The results suggest new perspectives in the developed film as a promising nanocomposite material for meat quality monitoring.