ORIGINAL ARTICLE Chitosan edible coating and oxygen scavenger eﬀects on modiﬁed atmosphere packaged sliced sucuk Ayça Şahin 1 | Emine Çarkcıo  glu 1 | Burak Demirhan 2 | Kezban Cando  gan 1 1 Department of Food Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Ankara University, G€ olbaşı Campus, 06830, Ankara, Turkey 2 Department of Food Analysis, Faculty of Pharmacy, Gazi University, 06330 Etiler, Ankara, Turkey Correspondence Kezban Cando gan, Department of Food Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, G€ olbaşı Campus, 06830, Ankara, Turkey. Email: candogan@eng.ankara.edu.tr Abstract The eﬀects of chitosan edible coating (CH) and oxygen scavenger (OS) in combination with modi- ﬁed atmosphere packaging (70% CO 2 /30% N 2 ) on microbiological and color stability of sliced sucuk were investigated during refrigerated storage for three months. Two groups of sucuk slices were coated with chitosan and packaged under modiﬁed atmosphere without OS (CH) or with OS (CH-OS); the other two control groups were not coated, but packaged under modiﬁed atmosphere without (C) or with OS (C-OS). The antimicrobial eﬀect of CH was more pronounced than OS in general. CH with or without OS reduced the total aerobic mesophilic and total aerobic psychro- philic bacteria by 2–3 log cfu/g from the initial count, and counts of Staphylococcus spp. by approximately 1.5–2 log units during storage (p < .05). At the end of storage, the CH group had the lowest L* value, while OS inclusion with CH resulted in higher a* and lower b* values than the control (p < .05), indicating that active packaging using OS with CH enhanced color stability. The results from this study demonstrate that CH is useful in reducing bacterial counts of sliced sucuk, while OS contributed more to color stability. Practical applications Active packaging of meat products has become increasingly popular in the industry to maintain product characteristics for longer periods of storage. In this study, the combined eﬀect of edible antimicrobial chitosan coating and iron based oxygen scavengers on microbiological and color sta- bility of modiﬁed atmosphere packaged sliced sucuk was evaluated during refrigerated storage. Greater microbiological stability was observed with chitosan coating application, whereas incorpo- ration of oxygen scavengers into the package gave rise to better color stability. Therefore, combined use of oxygen scavengers with chitosan edible coating could be a promising approach, particularly for reducing microbial growth and maintaining color of sucuk slices during refrigerated storage. KEYWORDS chitosan coating, modiﬁed atmosphere packaging, oxygen scavenger, sucuk 1 | INTRODUCTION Fermented meat products are traditionally produced and widely con- sumed in many countries. Sucuk is a dry fermented sausage with a large share in consumption among processed meat products in Turkey (Kesmen, Yetim, & Şahin, 2010). It is generally produced from beef and/or sheep meat by grinding the meat and fat, followed by the addi- tion of salt, sugar, garlic, various spices, nitrite/nitrate, stuﬃng into cas- ings and subjecting to fermentation and drying processes (Bozkurt & Erkmen, 2002; Coşkuner, 2002; Ertaş, 1985). Changes in food consumption style and consumer preferences together with the growing power of nontraditional grocery retailers have resulted in an increasing demand for ready-to-cook and/or ready- to-eat convenience prepackaged meat products with high quality and long shelf life (Ertaş, Kolsarici, & Soyer, 1991; Hasbio glu, 1993; Kargo- zari et al., 2014; Zhao et al., 2011). Similarly, sliced meat products have gained great interest from consumers. The same holds true for pre- sliced sucuk, ready to use for pizza toppings, toasts, and so on. The main concern for these types of convenience products is to supply eﬀective preservation due to possible microbiological contamination J Food Process Preserv. 2017;e13213. https://doi.org/10.1111/jfpp.13213 wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/jfpp V C 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. | 1 of 8 Received: 25 March 2016 | Revised: 31 July 2016 | Accepted: 10 September 2016 DOI 10.1111/jfpp.13213