Food loss and waste occur for many reasons, from crop processing to household leftovers. Even though some waste generation is unavoidable, a considerable amount is due to supply chain inefficiencies and damage during transport and handling. Packaging design and materials innovations represent real opportunities to reduce food waste within the supply chain. Besides, changes in people’s lifestyles have increased the demand for high-quality, fresh, minimally processed, and ready-to-eat food products with extended shelf-life, that need to meet strict and constantly renewed food safety regulations. In this regard, accurate monitoring of food quality and spoilage is necessary to diminish both health hazards and food waste. Thus, this work provides an overview of the most recent advances in the investigation and development of food packaging materials and design with the aim to improve food chain sustainability. Enhanced barrier and surface properties as well as active materials for food conservation are reviewed. Likewise, the function, importance, current availability, and future trends of intelligent and smart packaging systems are presented, especially considering biobased sensor development by 3D printing technology. In addition, driving factors affecting fully biobased packaging design and materials development and production are discussed, considering byproducts and waste minimization and revalorization, recyclability, biodegradability, and other possible ends-of-life and their impact on product/package system sustainability.

This work was focused on the correlation between the structural and techno-functional properties of ultrasound treated cassava starch for the preparation of tailor-made starch-based ingredients and derivatives. Furthermore, the effect of treatment time, sample conditioning and ultrasound amplitude was studied. Ultrasonic treatment of cassava starch induced structural disorganization and microstructural changes evidenced mainly in the morphological characteristics of the granules and in their degrees of crystallinity. These structural modifications were supported by ATR-FTIR and SEM and CSLM studies as well as DRX and thermal analysis. The selection of the processing conditions is critical due to the complete gelatinization of the starch was produced with the maximum amplitude tested and without temperature control. Rheological dynamical analysis indicated changes at the molecular level in starch granules due to the ultrasound treated, revealing the paste stability under refrigeration condition. PCA allow to establish the interrelationships between microstructural and techno-functional properties. In summary, different starch derivatives could be obtained by adjusting the ultrasound treatment conditions depending on their potential applications.