Review Reports - A Review of Essential Oils with Anti-<i>Campylobacter jejuni</i> Effects—Their Inhibitory and Destructive Effects on Biofilms and Efficacies on Food Matrices

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors The authors of the manuscript, presented review of the Essential Oils with Anti-Campylobacter jejuni effects – their inhibitory and destructive effects on biofilms, and efficacies on food matrices. The topic is suited with the Journal scope; however, the manuscript is bad prepared, and there are a few published articles on Essential Oils with Anti-Campylobacter jejuni effects, for example https://doi.org/10.3390/foods11030464 https://dx.doi.org/10.17179/excli2025-8439, https://doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms13102412, https://www.mdpi.com/journal/foods, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e12472, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fochx.2025.102943 So. What is the novelty and main finding of this work compared to others? Additionally, some points need to be revised before publication.

Remove the numbers 1,2,3 from the keyword
The abstract requires intensive revision to highlight only the main/novelty findings.
The current layout of the manuscript, which reads as a collection of separate sections, should be revised. The authors are encouraged to add a concise paragraph at the end of the Introduction that clearly states the aims of the work and outlines the organization of the subsequent sections in a logical and coherent order.
Move the supplementary materials (Figure S1 and Table S1) into the main text to improve clarity and facilitate easier reading of the manuscript
I recommend authors to merge section 2 “Current Procedures to Combat Campylobacteriosis” within the introduction section
I recommend that the authors revise the title of Section 3 to “Essential Oils: Composition and Extraction Techniques.” In its current form, the content of this section is overly general and lacks sufficient depth. The scientific value of the section would be significantly improved by including a table summarizing representative essential oils, their plant sources, extraction methods, and major bioactive components or biological activities. In addition, schematic illustrations of essential oil extraction processes and Inhibitory mechanisms of Essential Oils against Campylobacter jejuni would enhance clarity and strengthen the overall presentation.
Section 4 title revised to “Safety of Essential Oils as Food Ingredients”
Remove the phrase “Investigation of the” and “based experimental system” from the caption of Table 2. Also, re-edit the word “Chicken” in the first column to appear in one line
In the section on essential oils with anti-Campylobacter activity, it would be beneficial for the authors to summarize the reported findings in a table to facilitate clarity, comparison, and ease of reference
The conclusion section is overly general and does not adequately reflect the critical analysis or key findings of the review. It should be revised to better reflect the main outcomes, highlight specific essential oils and mechanisms discussed, address limitations identified in food matrices and biofilm control, and provide clearer, evidence-based recommendations for future research.
Delete Section 11, as there is no reported patent
The reference list requires updating, as only 23 out of the 76 cited articles were published since 2020

Author Response

Reviewer 1

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors of the manuscript, presented review of the Essential Oils with Anti-Campylobacter jejuni effects – their inhibitory and destructive effects on biofilms, and efficacies on food matrices. The topic is suited with the Journal scope; however, the manuscript is bad prepared, and there are a few published articles on Essential Oils with Anti-Campylobacter jejuni effects, for example https://doi.org/10.3390/foods11030464 https://dx.doi.org/10.17179/excli2025-8439, https://doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms13102412, https://www.mdpi.com/journal/foods, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e12472, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fochx.2025.102943 So. What is the novelty and main finding of this work compared to others? Additionally, some points need to be revised before publication.

Thank You for your opinion concerning to our manuscript that strictly focusing on anti-campylobacter effects of EOs. In frame of this summary we did not wanted to go into deep details, and discussing such general aspects that were described by other authors. So we only wanted to focus on anti- campylobacter EOs and their potential applications in foods. Please find our answers to your highly valued questions and suggestions by that we hope we could improve the quality of the review we wrote.

Commets are labelled with „Cx”, while Responses are followed by „Rx”.

C1: Remove the numbers 1,2,3 from the keyword

R1: Done

C2: The abstract requires intensive revision to highlight only the main/novelty findings.

R2: We restructurated the Abstract by mentioning more concretely the findings of the review.

C3: The current layout of the manuscript, which reads as a collection of separate sections, should be revised. The authors are encouraged to add a concise paragraph at the end of the Introduction that clearly states the aims of the work and outlines the organization of the subsequent sections in a logical and coherent order.

R3: We inserted an additional paragraph at the end of the introduction where actually the flow of thereview is presented.

C4: Move the supplementary materials (Figure S1 and Table S1) into the main text to improve clarity and facilitate easier reading of the manuscript

R4: It can be a misundertsanding, since this submission did not contain any supplementary material. For clarity, this we have stated now at the end of the manuscript.

C5: I recommend authors to merge section 2 “Current Procedures to Combat Campylobacteriosis” within the introduction section

R5: Thank You for you commence! Originally we felt that it shoud be a separate chapter, but yes by this the EO section (the topic practically) could be devided better.

C6: I recommend that the authors revise the title of Section 3 to “Essential Oils: Composition and Extraction Techniques.” In its current form, the content of this section is overly general and lacks sufficient depth. The scientific value of the section would be significantly improved by including a table summarizing representative essential oils, their plant sources, extraction methods, and major bioactive components or biological activities. In addition, schematic illustrations of essential oil extraction processes and Inhibitory mechanisms of Essential Oils against Campylobacter jejuni would enhance clarity and strengthen the overall presentation.

R6: Yes sure we are awrae that separation is an importnat issue concerning the efficacy of some EOs. Actually in frame of this review we did not want to go in details of this separate field but found the antimicrobial effects themselves relevant here.

C7: Section 4 title revised to “Safety of Essential Oils as Food Ingredients”

R7: Modified.

C8: Remove the phrase “Investigation of the” and “based experimental system” from the caption of Table 2. Also, re-edit the word “Chicken” in the first column to appear in one line

R8: We reformulated this table legend and re-edited the table columns.

C9: In the section on essential oils with anti-Campylobacter activity, it would be beneficial for the authors to summarize the reported findings in a table to facilitate clarity, comparison, and ease of reference

R9: Summary of the findings of recent publications have been made. It is Table 1. For better understanding we put Figure 2 that is actually a brief statistic about the recent relevant publications strictly focusing on C. jejuni – EO tests.

C10: The conclusion section is overly general and does not adequately reflect the critical analysis or key findings of the review. It should be revised to better reflect the main outcomes, highlight specific essential oils and mechanisms discussed, address limitations identified in food matrices and biofilm control, and provide clearer, evidence-based recommendations for future research.

R10: Thank You for your commence! We reformulated the Conclusion part.

C11: Delete Section 11, as there is no reported patent

R11: Yes sure, it accidentally remained there.

C12: The reference list requires updating, as only 23 out of the 76 cited articles were published since 2020

R12: Thank You for your commence. With authenticity in mind, we strive to always cite the original article, thereby giving credit to the original authors. Despite we certainly we reviewed the references and we were looking for a newer article, or rather added them where it was truly justified.

Submission Date

10 December 2025

Date of this review

24 Dec 2025 07:05:56

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The review entitled “A Review of Essential Oils with Anti-Campylobacter jejuni Effects—Their Inhibitory and Destructive Effects on Biofilms, and Efficacies in Food Matrices” summarizes the use of essential oils incorporated into food matrices to combat Campylobacter jejuni. The topic is relevant and timely, and the authors have made a commendable effort in compiling the available literature. However, several sections of the manuscript require reorganization and revision to improve clarity, coherence, and overall quality..

Major comments:

Grammar and formatting issues:

In Table 2, please correct “106” to “10⁶.”
Remove unnecessary trailing zeros (e.g., “9.000”).
Standardize volume units to mL throughout (currently both “ml” and “mL” are used).
Units are inconsistent (e.g., CFU/mL vs. log₁₀ CFU/g). Please consider unifying the units, or clearly justify the differences, to allow easier comparison.

Figures and clarity:

Additional figures may help improve clarity and better explain key concepts and results.

Organization and structure:

The manuscript structure is confusing in places and would benefit from reorganization. For example, the content around line 120 could be moved into a dedicated subsection under Section 3: Essential Oils to improve logical flow.

Minor comments:

Line 27: Please delete the numerical references following the text.
Line 46: Please define CCDA in full at first mention instead of using the abbreviation alone.
Line 87: Add a comma after “However.”
Line 248: Consider adding the chemical structures of the different essential oils. It would also be helpful to include their regulatory status, particularly permitted usage levels in food or food-packaging applications.
Table 2: The experimental method is unclear; please provide additional methodological details.
Figure 1: The purpose of this figure is unclear. Consider replacing it with a bar chart showing the number of publications versus year (with years on the x-axis).

Author Response

Reviwer 2

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Major comments:

Grammar and formatting issues:

C1: In Table 2, please correct “106” to “10⁶.”

R1: Corrected.

C2: Remove unnecessary trailing zeros (e.g., “9.000”).

R2: We reviewed the table and made the corrections.

C3: Standardize volume units to mL throughout (currently both “ml” and “mL” are used).

R3: We standardized it to mL.

C4: Units are inconsistent (e.g., CFU/mL vs. log₁₀ CFU/g). Please consider unifying the units, or clearly justify the differences, to allow easier comparison.

R4: Thank You for your relevant remark, but it depends on the publication. CFU/g is typically when the cfu was performed in or on meats, while CFU/mL when CFU determination was performed from liquid.

Figures and clarity:

C5: Additional figures may help improve clarity and better explain key concepts and results.

R5: Your critic is reasonable, considering the fact that it would be difficult to describe all the methods that were used in one figure as the methods were fairly diverse. But in order to make the aims (major questions) and methods in the listed studies more clear we updated the table by adding additional columns containing these target oriented information. By that we hope that the textflow became more supported by these informations.

Organization and structure:

C6: The manuscript structure is confusing in places and would benefit from reorganization. For example, the content around line 120 could be moved into a dedicated subsection under Section 3: Essential Oils to improve logical flow.

R6: We reorganized the structure of the text flow, by focusing first on antimicrobial effects and mode of actions (chapter 2.), than turning to safety considerations (chapter 3), that is followed by methodology and active compound revealments (chapter 4), after that EOs are discussed with anti-campylobacter activities (chapter 5). Consecutive parts focused on biofilm modulating effects (chapter 6) and food based systems (chapter 7), both of them’s clarity supported by tables.

Minor comments:

C7: Line 27: Please delete the numerical references following the text.

R7: During reformulation it was deleted.

C8: Line 46: Please define CCDA in full at first mention instead of using the abbreviation alone.

R8: Defined.

C9: Line 87: Add a comma after “However.”

R9: „However” is part of the sentence, so we did not want ed itt o finish, that is why „ , ” is proper.

C10: Line 248: Consider adding the chemical structures of the different essential oils. It would also be helpful to include their regulatory status, particularly permitted usage levels in food or food-packaging applications.

R10: Thank you for your remark. Our aims were not to go in detail concerning the chemical structures, but your remark considering the usage level is more than reasonable, therefore we added information where safety of EOs are discussed focusing on food applications and considering the ones effective against campylobacters (L211-).

C11: Table 2: The experimental method is unclear; please provide additional methodological details.

R11: We restructurated the complete Table2. and added more technical details.

C12: Figure 1: The purpose of this figure is unclear. Consider replacing it with a bar chart showing the number of publications versus year (with years on the x-axis).

R12: This version is presented.

Submission Date

10 December 2025

Date of this review

29 Dec 2025 18:43:58

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

After careful evaluation of the revised manuscript, I find that the authors have satisfactorily addressed the previous comments and concerns. The manuscript has significantly improved in clarity and scientific rigor, and it now meets the standards required for publication. I therefore consider it suitable for publication in its present form