Abstract
The recent surge in environmental awareness and consumer demand for stable, healthy, and safe foods has led the packaging and food sectors to focus on developing edible packaging materials to reduce waste. Edible films and coatings as a modern sustainable packaging solution offer significant potential to serve as a functional barrier between the food and environment ensuring food safety and quality. Whey protein is one of the most promising edible biopolymers in the food packaging industry that has recently gained much attention for its abundant nature, safety, and biodegradability and as an ecofriendly alternative of synthetic polymers. Whey protein isolate and whey protein concentrate are the two major forms of whey protein involved in the formation of edible films and coatings. An edible whey film is a dry, highly interacting polymer network with a three-dimensional gel-type structure. Films/coatings made from whey proteins are colorless, odorless, flexible, and transparent with outstanding mechanical and barrier properties compared with polysaccharide and other-protein polymers. They have high water vapor permeability, low tensile strength, and excellent oxygen permeability compared with other protein films. Whey protein-based films/coatings have been successfully demonstrated in certain foods as vehicles of active ingredients (antimicrobials, antioxidants, probiotics, etc.), without considerably altering the desired properties of packaging films that adds value for subsequent industrial applications. This review provides an overview of the recent advances on the formation and processing technologies of whey protein-based edible films/coatings, the incorporation of additives/active ingredients for improvement, their technological properties, and potential applications in food packaging.
Highlights
Food packaging has grown significantly in recent years to include new functionalities and meet the demands in markets that constantly challenge the development of stable and fresh food products
This review focuses on whey proteins (WP)-based films/coatings formation and technologies used for processing, the incorporation of active ingredients, the technological properties, and we summarize their applications in food industries
The results indicate that all films containing essential oils inhibited Listeria innocua, Pseudomonas fragi, S. aureus, and S. enteritidis, while films with oregano oil displayed the highest inhibition
Summary
Food packaging has grown significantly in recent years to include new functionalities and meet the demands in markets that constantly challenge the development of stable and fresh food products. Proteins serve as an excellent candidate to produce biodegradable films and coatings since they possess suitable mechanical, optical (transparency), and physical properties (flexibility and resistance). They can act as barriers to oxygen, aromas, and organic compounds. Various protein materials, including casein, collagen, corn zein, fish proteins, ovalbumin, soy protein isolate, wheat gluten, and whey protein isolate have been verified [8,9] Milk proteins, such as casein and whey proteins (WP), offer several significant physical properties (e.g., water solubility and emulsifying ability) for successful functioning in edible films, in addition to their nutritional value [10]. This review focuses on WP-based films/coatings formation and technologies used for processing, the incorporation of active ingredients, the technological (barrier, mechanical, surface, and optical) properties, and we summarize their applications in food industries
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