Anti-biofilm activity of essential oils in fruit and vegetable: A systematic review

Biofilm formation is one of the most serious threats in the food industry, mostly due to its contribution to the survival of spoiling and pathogenic microorganisms. Essential oils (EOs) are classified as secondary metabolites of plants which are generally recognized as safe (GRAS) and are typically mixtures of numerous components, and the monoterpenes constitute about 90% of their composition. The worldwide increase in foodborne outbreaks associated with fresh produce made us conduct a systematic review on in vitro application of EOs to remove biofilms in fruit and vegetables. Databases such as Scopus, PubMed and Web of Science were probed for relevant studies. The search criteria was restricted to published papers in English language up to August 2022. A total of 299 studies were extracted and after removing irrelevant papers, 17 papers were included in this review.Results indicated the effectiveness of EOs and their exposure time with fresh products on the breakdown of biofilms. Among the findings, only a part of a study indicated no effect of EOs (Citrus sinensis, Citrus aurantifolia, Coffea arabica and Vitez agnus-castus) against Erwinia amylovora biofilms in pear. Moreover, EOs were shown to act as pesticides and were reported to be effective against biofilm formation at pre-harvest stages.Most of the studied EOs showed strong effect on reducing bacterial burden without affecting the sensory score of fruits and vegetables; however, it is suggested that more attention should be paid to sensory evaluation of treated samples in future studies. These data underline the need for conducting more research on novel essential oils (or combinations) and characterization of them as natural antibiofilm agent.