Innovation in food packaging is mainly represented by the development of active and intelligent packing technologies, which offer to deliver safer and high-quality food products. Active packaging refers to the incorporation of active component into the package with the aim of maintaining or extending the product quality and shelf-life. The intelligent systems are able to monitor the condition of packaged food in order to provide information about the quality of the product during transportation and storage. These packaging technologies can also work synergistically to yield a multipurpose food packaging system. This review is a critical and up-dated analysis of the results reported in the literature about this fascinating and growing field of research. Several aspects are considered and organized going from the definitions and the regulations, to the specific functions and the technological aspects regarding the manufacturing technologies, in order to have a complete overlook on the overall topic.

Active packaging manufactured with biopolymers extracted from agri-food waste is one of the most innovative and eco-sustainable strategies for maintaining food quality. However, biopolymers often present poor performances, which hinders their competitiveness compared with plastics. This work focused on developing and optimizing a natural polymeric blend produced by solvent casting based on zein and chitosan to improve the pure biopolymers’ properties. The best results were obtained by blending zein and chitosan in a 1:2 weight ratio. The films were characterized in terms of morphology, mechanical and oxygen barrier properties, thermal stability, transparency and wettability. The blend production allowed us to obtain lower brittleness and lower stiffness materials compared with pure polymer films, with oxygen permeability values two orders of magnitude lower than pure zein, better optical properties with respect to pure chitosan and good thermal stability. The wettability properties of the blend did not result in being altered with respect to the single polymer, which was found to have hydrophilic behavior, highlighting the strong influence of glycerol used as a plasticizer. The results suggested that the polymer blending strategy is a viable and cost-effective method for producing packaging materials as alternatives to plastics.

Active food packaging represents an innovative way to conceive food packages. The innovation lies in using natural-based and biodegradable materials to produce a system intended to interact with the food product to preserve its quality and shelf-life. Compared to traditional plastics, active packaging is designed and regulated to release substances in a controlled manner, mainly antimicrobial and antioxidant compounds. Conventional technologies are not suitable for treating these natural substances; therefore, the research for innovative and green techniques represents a challenge in this field. The aim of this work is to compare two different polymeric structures: nanofibrous films obtained by electrospinning and continuous films obtained by solvent casting, to identify the best solution and process conditions for subjecting the samples to the supercritical fluids impregnation process (SFI). The supports optimized were functionalized by impregnating alpha-tocopherol using the SFI process. In particular, the different morphologies of the samples both before and after the supercritical impregnation process were initially studied, identifying the limits and possible solutions to obtain an optimization of the constructs to be impregnated with this innovative green technology in the packaging field.

In this work, the effect of different production techniques was evaluated on the physical and antioxidant properties of bio-based packaging intended to prevent the premature oxidation of packaged foods. Spent coffee ground extract, rich in antioxidant molecules, obtained through high pressure and temperature extraction, was loaded on zein polymeric matrices. The techniques adopted in this work are particularly suitable due to their mild conditions to produce active packaging completely based on natural compounds: electrospinning, solvent casting, and spin coating. The novelty of this work lay in the investigation of the dependance of the properties of active packaging on the adopted production techniques; the results clearly indicated a strong dependence of the features of the films obtained by different production processes. Indeed, spin coated samples exhibited the best oxygen barrier properties, while a higher tensile strength was obtained for the casted samples, and the fastest release of active compounds was provided by electrospun mats. The films produced with different methods had different physical properties and the release of extract bioactive compounds can be tunable by varying the production technique, dependent on the variable to be considered. The products developed offer an alternative to traditional packaging solutions, being more eco-sustainable and promoting waste valorization.

Electrospinning is a much‐explored technique in the membrane fabrication field, particularly in active food packaging. Despite the widespread use of this technique, there remains a significant gap in the literature regarding the actual economic evaluation of the viability of biomaterials compared to traditional plastics. This study seeks to fill this gap by developing electrospun, vanillin‐loaded zein membranes to evaluate their efficacy in terms of antimicrobial activity, biodegradability, and economic viability. From a sustainability perspective, the newly developed membranes show an impressive ability to inhibit yeast growth by 75%, with complete degradation observed in only 7 days. This underscores their potential to mitigate environmental impact and promote environmentally friendly packaging solutions to reduce both plastic waste and food loss while maintaining safety and quality. However, the economic sustainability of these membranes is still an open challenge. It becomes clear that the main bottleneck does not lie in the innovative production technology, but rather in the prices of raw materials, particularly natural additives. This underscores the need for supportive measures from institutions to incentivize the transition to sustainable packaging alternatives and the importance of the full circularity concept. This work shows that achieving the European goal of zero plastic waste requires concrete efforts.