Abstract
Food microbial contamination not only poses the problems of food insecurity and economic loss, but also contributes to food waste, which is another global environmental problem. Therefore, effective packaging is a compelling obstacle for shielding food items from outside contaminants and maintaining its quality. Traditionally, food is packaged with plastic that is rarely recyclable, negatively impacting the environment. Bio-based materials have attracted widespread attention for food packaging applications since they are biodegradable, renewable, and have a low carbon footprint. They provide a great opportunity to reduce the extensive use of fossil fuels and develop food packaging materials with good properties, addressing environmental problems and contributing significantly to sustainable development. Presently, the developments in food chemistry, technology, and biotechnology have allowed us to fine-tune new methodologies useful for addressing major safety and environmental concerns regarding packaging materials. This review presents a comprehensive overview of the development and potential for application of new bio-based materials from different sources in antimicrobial food packaging, including carbohydrate (polysaccharide)-based materials, protein-based materials, lipid-based materials, antibacterial agents, and bio-based composites, which can solve the issues of both environmental impact and prevent foodborne pathogens and spoilage microorganisms. In addition, future trends are discussed, as well as the antimicrobial compounds incorporated in packaging materials such as nanoparticles (NPs), nanofillers (NFs), and bio-nanocomposites.
Highlights
The essential functions of packaging are coverage and conservation of foodstuffs, retaining the food safety, quality, and increasing the shelf life of food products during transport, storage, and marketing
Metal oxides offer an advantage by transporting important elements of minerals to the body. Antibacterial agents such as zinc oxide (ZnO), magnesium oxide (MgO), TiO2, and metal oxide nanoparticles (ZnO-NPs, CuO-NPs, TiO2 -NPs, SiO2 -NPs, Al2 O3 -NPs, and Ag-NPs) have demonstrated successful antimicrobial activity against pathogens commonly found in food by generating reactive oxygen species (ROS), being biocompatible with cells and interacting with cell walls, or destroying the integrity of membrane [7,25,54], and these antibacterial agents have an advantage over organic antibacterial agents in terms of specificity and selectivity
Rostamzad et al [102] demonstrated that the water vapor permeability, mechanical strength, and tensile strength of bio-nanocomposite films were enhanced after fish myofibrillar protein (FMP) films were reinforced with MMT (1–5 wt.%)
Summary
The essential functions of packaging are coverage and conservation of foodstuffs, retaining the food safety, quality, and increasing the shelf life of food products during transport, storage, and marketing. The food industries and retailers have to face care, among which 14 of expenditures are caused due to foodborne illness linked with the product degradation or loss and pay millions of dollars as microbiological contamination use of processed, canned, and fresh products. Antimicrobial packaging is a robust technology to provide fresher, safer, and higher quality food products, and some new technologies have been studied which are associated with foodborne pathogenic and spoilage microorganisms It is a form of active packaging (including oxygen scavengers, moisture absorbers, ultraviolet barriers, and other mechanisms delivering antioxidant, flavoring, or antimicrobial activity), and the packaging material interacts with the packaged food in a desirable way [11,26].
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