Perez-Vazquez, A.; Barciela, P.; Carpena, M.; Prieto, M.A. Edible Coatings as a Natural Packaging System to Improve Fruit and Vegetable Shelf Life and Quality. Foods2023, 12, 3570.
Perez-Vazquez, A.; Barciela, P.; Carpena, M.; Prieto, M.A. Edible Coatings as a Natural Packaging System to Improve Fruit and Vegetable Shelf Life and Quality. Foods 2023, 12, 3570.
Perez-Vazquez, A.; Barciela, P.; Carpena, M.; Prieto, M.A. Edible Coatings as a Natural Packaging System to Improve Fruit and Vegetable Shelf Life and Quality. Foods2023, 12, 3570.
Perez-Vazquez, A.; Barciela, P.; Carpena, M.; Prieto, M.A. Edible Coatings as a Natural Packaging System to Improve Fruit and Vegetable Shelf Life and Quality. Foods 2023, 12, 3570.
Abstract
In the past years, consumers have increased their interest to buy healthier food products, rejecting those products with more additives and giving preference to the fresh ones. Moreover, the current environmental situation has made society more aware of the importance of reducing the production of plastic and food waste. In this way and considering the Food Industry need of reducing the food spoilage along the food chain, edible coating has been considered as an eco-friendly food packaging that can replace traditional plastic packaging providing an improvement in the product’s shelf-life. Edible coating are thin layers applied straightaway on the food materials’ surface, that are made of biopolymers that usually incorporate other elements, such as nanoparticles or essential oils, to improve their physicochemical properties. These materials must provide a barrier that can prevent the pass of water vapor and other gasses, the microbial growth, the moisture loss, and the oxidation, so the shelf-life could be extended. The aim of this review was to compile the current data available to give a global vision of the formulation process and the different ways to improve the characteristics of the coats applied in both fruits and vegetables. In this way, the suitability of compounds in by-products produced during the Food Industry chain were also considered for the edible coating production.
Biology and Life Sciences, Food Science and Technology
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
