Practical Application There is an immediate need in the food industry for antimicrobial treatments for fresh produce safety that effectively eliminate foodborne pathogens. Nanoencapsulation can provide a means to effectively deliver antimicrobial compounds and enhance the safety of fresh produce. This comparative study investigated the antimicrobial efficacy of free and nanoencapsulated natural antimicrobial systems against a foodborne pathogen, while monitoring their effect on fresh-cut produce quality. Overall, nanoencapsulation provided a method to effectively deliver essential oil and enhanced produce safety, while creating little to no detrimental quality changes on the fresh-cut produce. This study provides a side-by-side comparison among nanoencapsulation systems and their effect(s) on foodborne pathogen inhibition and also produce quality throughout shelf-life that could be used for other natural antimicrobials with similar properties and fresh produce applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]