UNS — One of the Student Creativity Program for Community Services (PKM-M) teams from Chemistry Program Universitas Sebelas Maret (UNS) Surakarta created an innovation of avocado (Persea Americana Mill) seed extracts application as a natural preservative for chicken meat. Under the supervision of Prof. Venty Suryanti, S.Si, M.Phil., Ph.D., this team has three members. The three members are Aulia Azizah, from the class of 2018 as team leader, and two members, Rahmat Untung Prasetya (2018) and Dyah Ellyawati Kusumaningtyas Maharani (2017).
To uns.ac.id team, Tyas stated that this innovative idea started from chicken meat’s rapid decay without a preservative such as cooling or other preservation attempts. This condition makes chicken meat, which is a primarily consumed commodity, has a short shelf life. In some instances, the flesh will exceed its distribution period before it reaches the community. In a large-scale industry, distribution is carried out with refrigeration and additional synthetic materials. However, the impact of synthetic material addition is not good for the long term, especially for children and pregnant women. Refrigeration, which is considered more practical and usual to use, also has drawbacks.
“Refrigeration is considered practical and is generally used. But our study found that refrigeration for large-scale production and delivery consumes more energy, especially in terms of electrical consumption, besides, it is considered less efficient because ice adds more weights to the loads,” Tyas explained, Monday (30/11/2020).
Considering this condition, this team thinks that avocado seed has the potential to be used as a preservative for chicken meat. According to the explanation from Tyas and the team, Avocado seeds have antibacterial, antioxidant, anti-cancer, and larvicidal activities, which are considered useful in tackling the microorganisms that cause decay, especially bacteria and fungi. Avocado seed extracts have IC50 antioxidant activity of more than 70%, while dried avocado seed extracts have IC50 antioxidant activity of 93%. The extract also has antibacterial activities against Clostridium sporogenes, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Proteus mirabilis, Staphylococcus aureus, and antifungal activities against Aspergillus niger, Candida albicans, and Penicillium notatum.
This innovation can be implemented by soaking chicken meat with avocado seed extracts. Besides that, it can also be applied directly to chicken meat that will be distributed. Tyas also explained the benefit of this innovation as a natural preservative with antibacterial activities as an alternative for the distribution process, usually employing the cooling method. Business players need to pay attention to consistent material availability to optimize the implementation of this innovation in the real business setting. This can be performed by developing collaboration between large industry and avocado sellers or a group of processed avocado food makers.
“We hope that this innovation can be applied by the community after passing the research stage and further development. Thus, this innovation can increase the selling price of avocado seed wastes. Also, what we disseminate can become a basis for further research and can be implemented in the future,” Tyas added.
On 26-27 November 2020, this team presented their innovation in the National Student Science Week (Pimnas) 2020 through online media. The event was held by the Ministry of Education and Culture (Kemendikbud) of the Republic of Indonesia (RI). HUMAS UNS
Reporter: Ratri Hapsari
Editor: Dwi Hastuti