A comprehensive review on the application of active packaging technologies to muscle foods

Highlights

• Use of AP technologies minimize hazards and enhance the quality and safety of muscle foods from farm to fork.

• Technological breakthroughs in AP sector lead to microbial growth inhibition, delayed oxidation and moisture regulation.

• The use plant extracts and nano-particles in AP seem very promising.

• Industrial recognitions and consumer acceptance about the efficacy of this system are crucial for commercial realizations.

Abstract

Since the beginning of the current millennium, innovations in food packaging systems have evolved as response to the continuous changes in market trends and consumer’s preferences for convenient, safe, healthy and quality food products. Active packaging (AP) system provides such functionalities to facilitate these demands and offers role beyond the traditional protection and inert barrier to the external environment. Various AP components such as antimicrobials, antioxidants, O₂ scavengers, CO₂ emitters/absorbers, moisture regulators, flavor releasers, and absorbers have been deliberately included in the package system for augmenting packaging performance. These constituents delay or stop chemical, microbial, enzymatic and oxidative spoilage, control weight loss, retain color and integrity of meat based products. Currently, the use of edible or biodegradable materials, plant extracts and nanomaterials are expected to substitute synthetic additives due to their packaging and waste management notions. This article reviews the principles and technological advances as well as the global patents and future research trends in AP sector with their applications focused on meat products.

Introduction

The food packaging technologies are improving consistently in response to the demands of modern society, as well as the industrial production trends toward fresh, mildly preserved, convenient, delicious, safe, wholesome and quality food products with a longer shelf life (Kerry, 2014, Realini and Marcos, 2014). Recently, the passive role of food packaging has changed from simple preservation and containment methods to include such aspects as safety, convenience, point of purchase marketing, material reduction, environmental concerns and tamper-proofing (Han, 2014). Emerging concepts of active and smart packaging technologies provide all these functionalities and numerous other innovative solutions for prolonging the shelf life and improving the quality and safety of food products (Realini & Marcos, 2014).

Subsidiary constituents such as antimicrobial releasing systems, gas scavengers or emitters, gas flushers, moisture absorbents and antioxidants have been included deliberately in or on either the packaging material or the package headspace to augment the performance of packaging system (Dobrucka and Cierpiszewski, 2014, Realini and Marcos, 2014). Changes in retail and distribution practices (i.e., internet shopping), consumers life-styles and market globalization resulted breakthrough in AP (Dainelli et al., 2008, Mohan et al., 2010). Extensive research schemes and developments are ongoing with the purpose of attaining competitive benefits and market shares.

Meat, poultry and seafood are among the highly perishable foods, which rapidly deteriorate unless properly processed, packaged and stored. The deteriorations and degradations are mainly because of the high contents of fat and moisture and are therefore vulnerable to biological reactions such as protein degradation, lipid oxidation, or putrefactions interceded by microbial and endogenous enzymes, resulting in a shorter life span (Alparslan and Baygar, 2017, Hosseini et al., 2015, Hosseini et al., 2016a). These reactions lead to the buildup of detrimental compounds, and discoloration (melanosis) caused by the phenols polymerization into insoluble dark pigments (melanins), subsequently degrade the quality (Nirmal & Benjakul, 2011).

Other intrinsic factors such as water activity and pH of fresh meat also accelerate spoilage. Generally, fresh meat has over 0.85 water activity level and a favorable pH range more suited for spoilage microbes (Dave and Ghaly, 2011, Mariutti et al., 2011). Several microorganisms, molds and yeasts are involved in the spoilage of meat and aquatic products (Table 1). In consequence, food-borne diseases have risen as a menace in many part of the world over the past few decades among all age groups. It has substantially influenced the environment and human health, and causes economic loss (Jayasena and Jo, 2013, Tauxe et al., 2010).

Active packaging system is used to delay or stop microbial, enzymatic and oxidative spoilage, minimize contamination, weight loss and to ensure the color and integrity of the products during storage (Chong et al., 2015, Kerry et al., 2006, Vital et al., 2016). The purpose of AP technologies for use in meat, poultry and fish industries are therefore to provide the aforementioned functionalities. Recently, a wide range of successful works have been done on the exploitation of AP systems for meat and meat products packaging (Barbosa-Pereira et al., 2014, Bolumar et al., 2016, Dobrucka and Cierpiszewski, 2014, Mohebi and Marquez, 2015). Therefore, the focus of this paper is to overview the potential applications and research trends in AP of meat, poultry and aquatic products, with special emphasis on antimicrobial packaging (AMP).