An overview of fruit and vegetable edible packaging materials

Abstract

Various edible fruit and vegetable materials, including purees, residues, extracts, and juices, have been investigated in terms of their matrix‐forming properties to produce edible packaging materials to be applied to food products influencing their overall quality and improving the efficiency of synthetic packaging, thus leading to the reduction in amount of synthetic polymers used for each application. The potential of fruit and vegetables to be used as components of edible packaging materials is discussed. Such application of fruits and vegetables is possible thanks to the presence of matrix‐forming polysaccharides and proteins in their composition while the presence of bioactive compounds such as vitamins and polyphenols may confer, eg, antioxidant and antimicrobial properties of active packaging materials. The development of edible fruit and vegetable packaging materials is a promising way of combining the barrier and mechanical properties of biopolymers with the nutritional and sensory properties. The application of fruit and vegetables as a component of edible packaging materials enables the utilization of raw materials with low commercial value. Edible packaging materials are a new method of their utilizing. There is also the possibility of just decreasing the amount of synthetic packaging waste by application of fruit and vegetable packaging materials simply as a passive or active layer partially replacing the non‐renewable materials.

Development of bionanocomposites of pectin and nanoemulsions of carnauba wax and neem oil pectin/carnauba wax/neem oil composites

“…Thus, the commercialization of biopolymer films such as polysaccharides (starch and its derivatives, pectin, cellulose, and its derivatives), proteins (gelatin, casein, ovoalbumin, gluten wheat, and zein), and lipids (acetylated monoglycerides, stearic acid, waxes, and acid esters) gained importance . They denote viable alternatives in complementing or replacing the traditional materials and are leading to the development of government mandates and covenants which focus on reducing packaging's environmental impact …”

“…Packages obtained from pectin alone have excellent oxygen barrier, aroma preservation, oil barrier, but they are not effective against moisture due to their hydrophilic nature . However, pectin‐based packaging generally does not correspond to the physical properties of conventional packages, limiting its practical application …”

“…[3,5] They denote viable alternatives in complementing or replacing the traditional materials and are leading to the development of government mandates and covenants which focus on reducing packaging's environmental impact. [6] Pectins are composed of natural complex heteropolysaccharides composed of residues of α-D-galacturonic acid (1,4) and a variety of neutral sugars such as rhamnose, galactose, and arabinose. It is the second most abundant component of the cell wall of terrestrial plants [4,[7][8][9] ; and it is used to produce films [10] and edible films for applications in food packaging.…”

“…[14] However, pectinbased packaging generally does not correspond to the physical properties of conventional packages, limiting its practical application. [6,15] Nanostructures addition in polysaccharide matrices may allow the preparation of nanocomposite films with improved physical properties. In addition, adding nanomaterials also improves barrier properties and stability of packaging.…”

Development of tannic acid-enriched materials modified by poly(ethylene glycol) for potential applications as wound dressing

“…To date, mainly phenolic acids are used as additives to polymeric materials, such as ferulic acid (Cirillo et al 2018), ellagic acid (Karaseva et al 2019), gallic acid (Xie et al 2018) as well as tannic acid (Buono et al 2018). They also provide new active biological properties as antibacterial or antioxidant (de Dicastillo et al 2016;Kadzinska et al 2019). Moreover, scaffolds containing tannic acid were implanted into the rabbits' bone where the healing processes were significantly elevated (Gentile et al 2017).…”