Edible Food Packaging in Targeted Food Preservation

Edible films and coatings are considered as a biopreservative technique used for protecting food products in an eco-friendly manner and in recent years, it is extensively applied as a primary packaging system for various food products due to the existing unique traits. The easily deteriorating nature of highly perishable products such as fruits and vegetables, fish, meat and dairy products arises due to microbial attack and environment degrading factors. Further, the fruits and vegetables have high nutritional nature and are directed to store for future availability, with minimized postharvest loss and targeted to bring them safely with maintained quality to the end users. The other nutritional food products such as meat and meat products, fish and fish products are easily degraded due to microbial attack, which in turn alter the nutritional value, texture, and overall acceptability. In this regards, the edible films and coatings are required to protect food products from deterioration during handling, processing, and transportation. In this context, the naturally derived biopolymers from the renewable sources such as carbohydrates, proteins, lipids and their combination are used for fabrication of edible films and coatings. The edible films and coatings provide improved quality and shelf life of stored food products by creating a protective layer against physical and mechanical damage, providing suitable controlled atmosphere and further, act as a semi-permeable barrier for moisture, gasses, and vapor. Besides, these films deliver benefits to the consumer by incorporating various bioactive agents including antioxidant, nutraceuticals, antimicrobials, flavoring, and coloring agent. Further, the quality attributes of bakery and fried food products are also maintained using edible films and coatings such as crispiness and oil uptake ratio. Based on this discussion, the current chapter discusses the application of edible films and coatings for targeted food products such as fruits and vegetables, fish and fish products, bakery products, and others in maintaining the food quality and further, improve the shelf life of food products.