Innovation around cheese is constant in attempts to meet ever-increasing consumer demands. Retail packaging provides a canvas to communicate to consumers added value from innovations or inherent properties of cheese. Packaging itself may also be the subject of cheese-related innovation. This systematic review of literature organizes research over the past 10 years related to cheese packaging innovation that consumers experience in the marketplace and during consumption of cheese products. The review discusses shipping, displaying cheese at grocery stores, the value of branding, purchasing preferences by demographics, health and nutrition claims, opportunities to highlight protein in cheese, marketing to children, issues of obesity and cheese, diet cheeses, allergens and non-dairy or vegan cheese, opening cheese packaging, cutting of cheese, cooking with cheese, eating cheese, the growing trend of snacking and convenience, and flavor preferences. This review provides helpful insights to cheese producers applying findings from research of various styles of cheeses, cheese marketers communicating effectively to consumers, cheese developers designing new products relevant to recent consumer demands, smaller or specialized companies seeking to differentiate their cheese product through available technology and strategy, and cheese lovers or those with hobbies surrounding food wanting to know recent advancements in cheese packaging. This review is a tool for discovering relevant articles relating to cheese packaging in a marketplace and consumption setting to guide cheese and cheese packaging and labeling innovation in the United States.

In this research, we explored various immobilized enzyme support materials, including the novel nylon-6 fiber membrane (NFM), and evaluated the increase in surface area and its effect on enzyme binding potential. We also manipulated incubation and reaction conditions and assessed the subsequent effects on activity and stability of β-galactosidase, with comparisons between various solid support materials and free (dissolved) enzyme. Nylon-6 fiber membranes were created by electrospinning and were compared with other materials as solid supports for enzyme binding. The other materials included polyvinylidene fluoride 5-kDa nanofiltration dairy membranes, nylon-6 pellets, and silica glass beads. Scanning electron microscopy revealed the large surface area of NFM, which correlated with greater enzyme activity compared with the relatively flatter surfaces of the other solid support materials. Enzyme activity was measured spectrophotometrically with the color-changing substrate o-nitrophenyl-β-d-galactopyranoside. Compared with the other solid supports, NFM had greater maximum enzyme binding potential. Across pH conditions ranging from 3.5 to 6.0 (including the optimal pH of 4.0-5.0), enzyme activity was maintained on the membrane-immobilized samples, whereas free enzyme did not maintain activity. Altering the storage temperature (4, 22, and 50°C) affected enzyme stability (i.e., the ability of the enzyme to maintain activity over time) of free and polyvinylidene fluoride membrane samples. However, NFM samples maintained stability across the varying storage temperatures. Increasing the immobilization solution enzyme concentration above the maximum enzyme binding capacity had no significant effect on enzyme stability for membrane-immobilized samples; however, both had lower mean stability than free enzyme by approximately 74%. With further development, β-galactosidase immobilized on NFM or other membranes could be used in continuous processing in the dairy industry for a combination of filtration and lactose hydrolysis-creating products that are reduced in lactose and increased in sweetness, with no requirement for "added sugars" on the nutrition label and no enzyme listed as final product ingredient.

Sustainability considerations increasingly influence food packaging design, with recyclability serving as a prominent, consumer-facing indicator of environmental responsibility. However, recyclable design alone does not ensure correct consumer disposal, particularly for materials requiring specialized recycling pathways. This study examined consumer disposal behavior for used Colby-Jack cheese stick packaging containing non-recyclable food-contact components and secondary packaging that was non-recyclable, recyclable, or conditionally recyclable, as indicated by the How2Recycle (H2R) labeling system for consumer packaged goods commonly used in the US and Canada. Using a controlled, in-person kitchen clean-up simulation, 105 adult participants disposed of three commercially representative packaging formats differing in material type (flexible plastic films and corrugated fiberboard) and recyclability. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: no recycling label, H2R label only, or H2R label plus brief educational instruction on label interpretation. Widely recyclable corrugated fiberboard trays were placed into the recycling bin significantly more often than all other packaging components (p < 0.0001), and the presence of an H2R label increased consumer recycling of this material relative to NoLabel (p = 0.0401), while additional education did not further improve outcomes. In contrast, attempts at consumer recycling store drop-off recyclable flexible plastic packaging increased significantly only when education accompanied labeling (p = 0.0038). Non-recyclable food-contact wrappers showed uniformly low recycling rates across all conditions. Wishcycling occurred among 18.9% of participants and was more frequent in the YesLabel group (p = 0.0433). These findings indicate that material familiarity strongly influences correct recycling behavior and that labeling alone may be insufficient for less familiar recyclable materials.