Fresh pork is susceptible to microbial contamination and lipid oxidation, which leads to food safety and quality issues. This study aimed to develop a kappa-carrageenan (KC) coating embedded with cinnamon essential oil (CEO) for antimicrobial and antioxidant purposes in pork meat. The uncoated controls and coated samples were subjected to microbial (total viable count, lactic acid bacteria, and H₂S-producing bacteria), chemical (DPPH and pH), and physical (surface color) analyses during refrigerated storage at 4 °C for 7 days. It was observed that KC coatings exhibited a better preservation effect on pork meat after the addition of CEO. The KC–CEO coatings were effective in retarding the growth of total viable count, lactic acid bacteria, and H₂S-producing bacteria. In a DPPH test, the level of lipid oxidation in pork meat was also significantly (p < 0.05) reduced by the KC–CEO coatings. Furthermore, these coatings displayed pronounced activity in inhibiting the adverse alterations of pH value and surface color. Practically, KC–CEO-coated samples still exhibited an attractive bright red color at the end of refrigerated storage. Taken together, the developed KC–CEO coatings exerted pronounced antimicrobial and antioxidant activities in pork, thus providing a potential approach to preserving perishable meat.

Utilization of sublethal concentrations of cinnamon essential oil (CEO) for food preservation has been proposed. However, exposure to stressful, sublethal growth conditions may induce bacterial tolerance to homologous or heterologous stressing agents. Hence, the ability of CEO to stimulate bacterial stress response was evaluated in the current work. Staphylococcus aureus was exposed to 1/4 and 1/2 of the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC, 500 μL/L) of CEO for 18 h. It was found that overnight habituation to CEO failed to induce direct tolerance and cross-tolerance to lactic acid (pH 4.5), NaCl (10 g/100 mL) and high temperature (45 °C) in S. aureus. Likewise, S. aureus cells subjected to successive habituation with increasing amounts (1/16 MIC to 2× MIC) of CEO developed no direct tolerance. Taken together, CEO has no inductive effect on the acquisition of stress tolerance in S. aureus.