In recent years, much attention has been paid to the use of biopolymers as food packaging materials due to their important characteristics and properties. These include non-toxicity, ease of availability, biocompatibility, and biodegradability, indicating their potential as an alternative to conventional plastic packaging that has long been under environmental scrutiny. Given the current focus on sustainable development, it is imperative to develop studies on biopolymers as eco-friendly and sustainable food packaging materials. Therefore, the aim of this review is to explore trends and characteristics of biopolymer-based biodegradable films for food packaging, analyze the contribution of various journals and cooperation between countries, highlight the most influential authors and articles, and provide an overview of the social, environmental, and economic aspects of biodegradable films for food packaging. To achieve this goal, a bibliometric analysis and systematic review based on the PRISMA method were conducted. Relevant articles were carefully selected from the Scopus database. A bibliometric analysis was also conducted to discuss holistically, comprehensively, and objectively biodegradable films for food packaging. An increasing interest was found in this study, especially in the last 3 years with Brazil and China leading the number of papers on biodegradable films for food packaging, which were responsible for 20.4% and 12.5% of the published papers, respectively. The results of the keyword analysis based on the period revealed that the addition of bioactive compounds into packaging films is very promising because it can increase the quality and safety of packaged food. These results reveal that biodegradable films demonstrate a positive and promising trend as food packaging materials that are environmentally friendly and promote sustainability.

Coffee is consumed not just for its flavor, but also for its health advantages. The quality of coffee beverages is affected by a number of elements and a series of processes, including: the environment, cultivation, post-harvest, fermentation, storage, roasting, and brewing to produce a cup of coffee. The chemical components of coffee beans alter throughout this procedure. The purpose of this article is to present information about changes in chemical components and bioactive compounds in coffee during preharvest and postharvest. The selection of the appropriate cherry maturity level is the first step in the coffee manufacturing process. The coffee cherry has specific flavor-precursor components and other chemical components that become raw materials in the fermentation process. During the fermentation process, there are not many changes in the phenolic or other bioactive components of coffee. Metabolites fermented by microbes diffuse into the seeds, which improves their quality. A germination process occurs during wet processing, which increases the quantity of amino acids, while the dry process induces an increase in non-protein amino acid γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA). In the roasting process, there is a change in the aroma precursors from the phenolic compounds, especially chlorogenic acid, amino acids, and sugars found in coffee beans, to produce a distinctive coffee taste.

Combining intelligent and active packaging serves the dual purpose of detecting color changes in food that reflect changes in its quality and prolonging its shelf life. This study developed an intelligent and active packaging system made from the cellulose of Acetobacter xylinum and assessed its ability to detect changes in the quality and to increase shelf-life of packaged fresh beef. The properties of the intelligent packaging’s sensor and active packaging films were determined. The application of this system to fresh beef stored at room temperature (28 ± 2 °C) for 24 h was tested. The color of the bromothymol blue (BTB) solution (pH 2.75) in the indicator of the intelligent packaging system changed from orange to dark green to indicate that beef quality changed from fresh to rotten. The meat treated with the active packaging with 10% and 15% garlic extract decayed on the 16th h. In contrast, the meat treated with the active packaging without the garlic extracts rotted on the 12th h. The shift in the indicator’s color was linearly related to the total plate count (TPC), total volatile basic nitrogen (TVBN), and pH of the meat packaged using the active packaging system. Therefore, BTB solution (pH 2.75) can be used as an intelligent packaging indicator that will allow consumers to assess the quality of packaged meat easily. As an antimicrobial agent, the addition of 10–15% garlic extract to the active packaging films can help delay the spoilage of packaged beef.

This bibliometric study includes publications on the use of active packaging in food packaging from 2000 to 2021. The number of research related to this study tends to increase annually with an annual growth rate of 23.76%, totaling 857 articles. In this study it was found that the most influential countries in the field of Active Packaging are Spain, China, and Brazil. Moreover, the International Journal of Biological Macromolecules and Nerín are the most prolific journal and author in scientific publications, respectively. Active packaging, food packaging, and antimicrobial are often used based on the total link strength out of the 1,775 keywords. The keyword analysis based on time found new terms that are being studied by many researchers, namely, bioplastics as environmentally friendly packaging, based on polysaccharides and nanoparticles, which have the potential to be developed or collaborated for breakthroughs. Therefore, the use of active packaging shows a promising trend for the packaging industry in the future.