Properties and Applications of Intelligent Packaging Indicators for Food Spoilage

Abstract

Food packaging plays a vital role in the food supply chain by acting as an additional layer to protect against food contamination, but the main function of traditional conventional packaging is only to isolate food from the outside environment, and cannot provide related information about food spoilage. Intelligent packaging can feel, inspect, and record external or internal changes in food products to provide further information about food quality. Importantly, intelligent packaging indicators will account for a significant proportion of the food industry’s production, with promising application potential. In this review, we mainly summarize and review the upcoming progress in the classification, preparation, and application of food packaging indicators. Equally, the feasibility of 3D printing in the preparation of intelligent food packaging indicators is also discussed in detail, as well as the limitations and future directions of smart food packaging. Taken together, the information supported in this paper provides new insights into monitoring food spoilage and food quality.

Electrospun Nanofibers for Functional Food Packaging Application

“…It often uses intelligent devices such as data carriers (barcodes and radio frequency identification tags (RFIDs)), indicators (provide food safety and quality information in real time), and sensors (quickly measure food condition) [151]. Leakage indicators (LIs), time-temperature indicators (TTIs), freshness indicators (FIs), and RFIDs are common applications in smart food packaging [152]. In a smart packaging system, materials that interact with the surrounding environment are added to the packaging.…”

Smart Food Packaging: An Umbrella Review of Scientific Publications

“…Proving feasibility and cost effectiveness will boost the progress of this type of packaging as a good candidate to ensure food safety and quality. Moreover, 3D printing would support the designing and executing of custom-made films that fit with the product requirements [100,101].…”

Material Breakthroughs in Smart Food Monitoring: Intelligent Packaging and On‐Site Testing Technologies for Spoilage and Contamination Detection

“…[3,4] Strategies to monitor spoilage in real-time are currently not applied commercially, specifically because conventional means of food monitoring -such as bacterial culturing, are time-consuming, tedious, and futile on an individual product monitoring basis -a prerequisite for spoilage monitoring given its variable nature. [5] This has yielded significant interest toward the development of sensors that can monitor spoilage-related changes within food in real-time. While food spoilage is mediated by many different biochemical and microbial changes, shifts in biogenic amine concentration, pH, microbial content, and lipid oxidation have been identified as main contributors (Figure 1a).…”

“…While food spoilage is mediated by many different biochemical and microbial changes, shifts in biogenic amine concentration, pH, microbial content, and lipid oxidation have been identified as main contributors (Figure 1a). [5,6] These changes heavily influence the organoleptic properties of food, as detailed in Figure 1b. From a sensing perspective, changes in the former two have garnered the most interest, largely due to the diverse means by which these shifts can be tracked using relatively simple reaction cascades.…”