Effect of tempeh wrapping on sensory evaluation and lactic acid bacteria profile

Tempeh is a fermented food made from soybeans and consumed daily due to its delicious flavour and high nutritional value. Traditionally, tempeh is wrapped in banana leaf, but nowadays, tempeh wrappers are often replaced with plastic because it is cheap and practical. However, high plastic utilization in daily life results in waste accumulation and causes environmental issues. Therefore, different types of leaves were explored as wrapping alternatives to reduce plastic utilization. This study aimed to determine the sensory characteristics of tempeh made with various wrappers and the lactic acid bacteria (LAB) characteristics of each tempeh. In this study, tempeh was wrapped in a teak leaf, bamboo leaf, lotus leaf, coconut leaf and plastic. Enumeration of total viable bacteria and LAB were not significantly different for all variants of the tempeh, except for the lotus leaf variant, which had a significantly lower number of LAB. The teak and coconut leaf variant tempeh were acceptable to panellists in the sensory evaluation test. The most preferred variant was the plastic-wrapped variant which had no significant difference from commercial tempeh. All LAB from the five types of tempeh were isolated to evaluate their haemolytic activity and antibiotic resistance. The result showed that all isolates exhibited negative haemolytic activity (gamma haemolysis). Most isolates (90.8%) were susceptible to chloramphenicol, while 80.3% of the isolates were resistant to vancomycin. The five isolates with the best characteristics were identified using the 16S rRNA gene. They were identified as Enterococcus faecium, Staphylococcus gallinarum and Staphylococcus xylosus.