Food packaging related research trends in the academic discipline of food science and technology: A bibliometric analysis

Abstract

The field of food science and technology is and always has been highly interdisciplinary and an important driver of our society. Today, and against the background of massive sustainability challenges, the discipline is challenged more than ever to develop new solutions. One of the areas of concern is food packaging, which is an integral part of food (systems) and an important lever in terms of sustainability. Against this background and in order to find out to what extent the scientific discipline of food science and technology has dealt with the topic of "food packaging" in the last 20 years (2000–2021), a bibliometric analysis was carried out using the Web of Science database. On this basis, the influence of different authors, working groups, countries and journals, as well as the topics covered and thematic trends were mapped. In addition to the influence analysis, the most important results show that publication activity has increased significantly in the last 20 years and especially since the 2010s, and that the keywords active packaging, migration and chitosan have been the focus of attention. Furthermore, a shift from rather general to more specific research terms was noticeable.