Trends in Food Packaging: A Comprehensive Review

Abstract

Food packaging is one of the fastest developing components of the food industry and the one where innovations are constantly happening according to the ever-evolving needs of the market. Food market is responsible for global food packaging approximately to 35%. Food packaging is conventionally required to have many functions like containing and protecting the food, having a specific space for nutrition facts labels, shelf life, adding a distinct brand identity and packaging the food in a way that consumers are attracted to it. However, focus on solely packaging can only address the symptoms of the problem, but does not cater the underlying systemic causes for the rapid growth and dependance on packaging. The deleterious effects of conventional packaging materials on environment and human health and the public awareness about the same, have prompted food industry to transit towards sustainable packaging. Packaging material, these days, is being manufactured using green technology and various practices to optimize the use of materials and energy. There is a growing demand for packaging through the use of edible or biodegradable materials, plant extracts and nanomaterial. Consumers are interested in packaging that increases shelf-life, tells them about the food it contains and uses technology to enhance the quality and safety of food packed within. Therefore, a completely new generation of packaging material is now being developed to monitor the property of packed food as well as their environmental sustainability. This article gives an overview of conventional packing, critically evaluates its environment and health impacts and discusses current trends and advances in the food packaging industry including active, intelligent and green technologies like edible and nanomaterial-based packaging. It is evident that the development of novel technologies using biodegradable nano based composite material have enhanced shelf life and passive properties (mechanical, thermal and barrier performance) of food but still there is need to research the migration, toxicity and environmental implications of the existing ingredients used for packaging and work towards searching novel renewable resources to prepare the biocompatible packaging materials, their processing to improve performance and finally their up-scale production.