Carotenoids based smart packaging: A comprehensive review

Abstract

Food packaging technology is changing significantly from its conventional protective role to one that is more interactive, and communication driven. The goal is to enhance the safety and quality of the food by regular monitoring during the supply chain. Natural food colorants such as carotenoids are being increasingly explored for its potential application in the smart packaging films as an alternative to the synthetic dyes. In addition to adding color, these carotenoids improve the nutritional content and are known to impart health promoting elements to the food. The fruits and vegetables serve to be a rich source of carotenoids. Incorporated carotenoids act as sensor or indicator, allowing for the real-time monitoring of food quality parameters such as microbial growth, physiological changes, freshness, and physicochemical attributes. This property of carotenoids have drawn the attention of consumers, food industries and scientific community. In addition, carotenoids are known for its antioxidant, anti-microbial property which are known to benefit food matrix in increasing its shelf life. The inclusion of carotenoids has been shown to positively influence the mechanical, thermal and barrier properties of packaging films. Given the significance of aforementioned background, the present review aims to compile the recent studies and investigations made on the potential use of carotenoids in food packaging as smart indicator. Further it also captures the sources and extraction methodologies presently available for the enhanced recovery process. It also provides the future line of work for the commercial realization of carotenoids based smart packaging. This review article is aimed at summarizing the existing current state of knowledge on the carotenoids application in smart packaging systems and does not claim to be systematic or complete.