Active packaging for lipid foods and development challenges for marketing

Abstract

Consumer demand for natural products with low concentration of additives and controlled environmental impact has been a major challenge for the lipid food packaging industry. Because of this fact, active packaging such as oxygen absorbers and antioxidant releasers are trends in the industry. In this work, research developed on oxygen absorbing packaging and antioxidant-releasing packaging will be discussed. This work will also reveal the challenges to commercialization. Packaging that slows down lipid oxidation in food presents satisfactory results and greater efficacy than vacuum packaging. The challenges for the development of active packaging that consist of biopolymers and natural additives are related to the physical and mechanical properties of the materials. Future research should develop biodegradable active packaging that are resistant to industrial processing. Furthermore, there are plenty of natural resources not yet studied and that may be applicable for the development of active oxygen-absorbing and antioxidant active packaging for food.