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Summary: In this work, a new coating strategy was successfully developed and promising results indicate a significant reduction of the water sensibility of cornstarch films coated by chemical vapour deposition (CVD). Amorphous carbon coatings (a-C:H) produced from methane (CH 4 ) were submitted to different sulphur hexafluoride plasma treatments. The best results were obtained for cornstarch films coated with a 50 nm-thick CH 4 plasma coating and treated with SF 6 for 60 s. This surface modification led to a significant increase in the surface hydrophobicity, with measured contact angle of 858. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) was used to evaluate local surface modifications upon the a-C:H coating and after the SF 6 plasma treatment. Results indicate that the cornstarch films were homogeneously coated using CH 4 . SF 6 treatment led to a plasma etching of the surface, changing completely the observed morphology. Fluorine was incorporated to the surface.