Nano packaging – Progress and future perspectives for food safety, and sustainability

Food packaging applications are constantly evolving due to consumer awareness and safety concerns. Predominant use of chemical additives and petroleum-based polymers presents risks of cross-contamination, cytotoxicity and environmental imbalance. This unanimously calls for explorations of alternative materials that can offer technologically advanced food packaging, sensing capabilities and improved. In this context, the advent of nanotechnology, prompted revolutionary perspectives for the advancements in diversified industrial applications. Its introduction in the strata of food science effectively addresses the apprehensions of food preservation, security, quality control and sustainability. Utilization of nanomaterials imparts unconventional and intriguing characteristics to food packaging products such as enhanced antibacterial properties, thermal and catalytic conductivity among others. However, the potential of these nano-based materials remains largely unexplored. Nonetheless, incorporating them into a universal constituent of food packaging industry, demands prudent contemplations around peculiar aspects such as costs, legislations, consumer acceptance, cytotoxicity and migration behavior. This review provides updated literature and prospective on exploration of advanced nanomaterials addressing these emerging challenges in food packaging industry.