Abstract

MONTERO-PRADO, Pablo  and  RUIZ MORALES, Giancarlo Antonio. Recent advances to increase the shelf life and safety of packaged foods. Agron. Mesoam [online]. 2022, vol.33, n.3, 48389. ISSN 2215-3608.  http://dx.doi.org/10.15517/am.v33i3.48389.

Introduction. Food packaging has played an important and varied role, accordance with the requirements and demands of the market. Currently, these needs are focused on the goal of having safe and innocuous food for as long as possible. To this end, the study and development of new technologies for food packaging has been expanded, which provides the conditions and characteristics necessary to achieve the proposed objective. Objective. To present the most recent advances in the field of food packaging (active and intelligent). Development. This work presents different techniques and criteria that are considered used to propose the concept of active packaging. Gathering the necessary conditions for the supply or suppression of beneficial or harmful substances, contributing to the conservation and deterioration of the contained foods. In some cases, various compounds, mostly of natural origin, are incorporated to counteract the deterioration of food, such as antioxidants, antimicrobials, oxygen absorbers, carbon dioxide, and ethylene. At the same time, the technology known as intelligent packaging is presented, equipped with the necessary resources to monitor and interpret the internal state of the container, and with the ability to communicate this condition visually to be identified by consumers, merchants, and manufacturers. In both cases, the aim is to eliminate or delay the undesirable modification of food and its implications for human health. Conclusions. The generation of active and intelligent packaging represents an important innovation, which manages to increase the shelf life of food, in conditions suitable for consumption. Reaching a considerable economic impact of the sectors involved. These new developments require an individual evaluation of each specific food against the components used. To know the concentrations, according to the characteristic that is required to be controlled, and in this way, understand the possible interactions that can occur between the content and the container that contains it.

Keywords : packaging; food additives; sensors; essential oils; antioxidants; antimicrobial agents.

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