Scaling up difficulties and commercial aspects of edible films for food packaging: A review

Background: Edible food packaging, produced from edible polymers, is a kind of packaging suitable for human consumption along with the contained food. Despite many advantages, the edible films are still produced in laboratory scale due to problems, such as lack of poor elongation, safety and health issues, high cost, processing difficulties, etc. It is essential to overcome these difficulties for scaling up the production to industrial scale and making the edible films commercially successful. Scope & approach: Even though some reviews on edible films and coatings have little discussed, there is no dedicated article on scaling up difficulties and commercial aspects of edible films. This article reviews the research progress, confronting problems, and research opportunities ahead for the industrial scaling up and commercial success for edible films in food packaging. Key findings & conclusions: Incorporation of plasticizer, production of multilayers, composites, and nano-composite films improved the properties significantly, but some fundamental research on the key factors are still not investigated. Current laboratory scale production of edible films has problems like inability to make continuous films, long drying time and inaccurate thickness control, which must be addressed before the industrial scaling up production. Lack of evidence on edibility, biodegradability, toxicological and health effects, inadequate marketing, lack of awareness, cultural issues, can affect the food safety and customer acceptance. Future research must address all these problems from the view of industrial scaling up and commercial aspects in order to make the industrially viable and commercially successful edible films.