Paola Del Serrone

By Marcello Nicoletti and Paola Del Serrone

Urgent need of increased food production and availability are crucial in humankind future. A key aspect concerns the food preservation, wherein packaging is a main aspect. Packaging is still in a primitive form, utilized as a way to separate food from environmental conditions, not considering the inside situation. Improvement of packaging means less cost, more food available, and waste decrease. Several solutions are emerging to face this challenge. They are focused on three aspects: the antimicrobial agent; the packaging material; and the technological implication in the final production of packaging. Biotechnology is expected to play a central role in the future food to solve central points, as retain integrity and actively prevent food spoilage. In this phase, several projects are moving, still waiting to converge in adequate products. The galaxy of smart packaging is rapidly moving and increasing in researches. This phase represents a chaotic period of several proposals production and tentative in solving the food preservative problems, using new technologies and advanced techniques, like nanotechnology. Waiting the collapse into a central paradigm, it is interesting and useful to follow the scenario of researches on smart packaging based on natural products here reported.

Part of the book: Future Foods