Bridging pragmatism and innovation in active packaging technologies

Increasing food waste is a threat to the environmental and economic sustainability of our food system. Approved food additives can help retain quality and safety, yet the widespread effort to remove them to address Clean Label demands, will result in an unintended increase in food wasted due to spoilage. Much research has demonstrated active packaging technologies that enable removal of additives without a corresponding loss in product quality. While promising, there remain translational hurdles in technology development that have prevented the successful commercialization of most proposed active packaging concepts. Herein we describe research designed to overcome technical hurdles to scalable production of active packaging materials. The resulting active packaging materials can support addressing converging consumer demands of additive removal and reduction of food wasted due to spoilage.