Food Packaging: The Smarter Way

Book excerpt: This book reviews the science and technology of food packaging and covers the potential innovations in the food packaging sector. At the same time, it highlights the issues and prospects for linking the laboratory research to the market. In addition to typical packaging requirements such as food quality, shelf life, protection, communication, and marketing, the book emphasizes the need for novel packaging materials, including biodegradable packaging for a variety of food products. A wide range of food products has been kept in focus and includes animal-based food products such as dairy products and sea foods. The book presents the next level of packaging solutions i.e., smart packaging with the applications of potential tools such as intelligent and active packaging, and includes the latest research on emerging digital technologies for packaging development, assessment, and acceptability. It further highlights the strategies including blends, reinforcing agents, cold plasma, UV light applications, chemical, and enzymatic methods and explores the new opportunities leading to improvement in the packaging performance. Smart freshness indicator applications, including gas and time-temperature indicators for quality and safety of packaged products, have been covered in detail. The book also includes the functional characteristics of edible films and coatings, including their bioactive characteristics. Finally the book presents the rules and regulation related to packaging.