Progress of Curcumin in Food Packaging: A Review

The overuse of traditional petroleum-based packaging materials is one of the major factors aggravating environmental pollution. Therefore, it is an urgent need to develop green-replaceable and biodegradable packaging materials, which greatly promotes the development of the food packaging industry. Recently, the development of intelligent packaging and active packaging has become a research hotspot. Curcumin, having excellent functional properties such as antimicrobial, antioxidant, and photosensitivity, has been used as an antimicrobial, an antioxidant, and a photosensitiser, as well as a pH indicator in the development of multifunctional films/coatings. However, it has not been widely used for its drawbacks such as poor water solubility and easy decomposition in the presence of light. It has been found that the limitations of its application can be improved by embedding measures such as nanoparticles, microcapsules, and nanofibres, or by encapsulating curcumin using substances with special structures. In addition, it can also be incorporated into membrane matrices in the form of encapsulation to prepare multifunctional packaging films. This paper reviews the current status of research on the embedding method and release effect of curcumin, its application in active and smart packaging, the development of photodynamic antimicrobial film based on it, and its joint use with metal antimicrobial agents in food packaging, which will provide a reference basis for the subsequent development of food packaging.