Application and Development of Intelligent Food Packaging in Food Freshness Monitoring

Abstract

Intelligent food packaging, also referred to as smart packaging, has emerged as a promising solution for enhancing food safety, quality assurance, and supply chain transparency. By embedding sensing, indicating, recording, and communication functionalities into packaging systems, intelligent packaging enables real-time or near-real-time monitoring of environmental and intrinsic food conditions. This review summarizes the classification of intelligent packaging technologies by functional roles, sensing targets, and integration approaches. The fundamental detection principles, including colorimetric indication, electrochemical sensing, gas/volatile compound monitoring, biorecognition, and mass-sensitive detection, are discussed in detail. This paper also reviews the enabling manufacturing te