Agar-based edible films and food packaging application: A comprehensive review

Recently, there has been an immense interest in seaweed-based biopolymers and their applications in food packaging. Amongst various alternatives, agar is a red seaweed-based edible biopolymer and well-known for developing food packaging films and coatings. There are numerous extraction processes to obtain agar from seaweed. The innate properties of agar make them as suitable raw material to form the base matrix for edible packaging materials. The bioactive ingredients incorporated in agar-based packaging films exhibit promising potential in active and smart food packaging applications. This review discussed the latest developments in agar-based film fabrication and its various useful properties. Besides producing conventional agar-based films, films loaded with active-ingredients and in conjunction with other biopolymers have also been outlined and systematically reviewed. Additionally, the enhanced functional agar-based films used for real-time food packaging (active and smart) applications have also been discussed. The agar-based films are the most eligible candidates for edible food packaging applications due to their superior water resistance properties compared to the other commonly used biopolymers. Despite being a suitable choice for making bio-based sustainable food packaging films, still, high brittleness, low barrier properties, and lack of functionality are the major challenges that limit its packaging use. To overcome these shortcomings, adding plasticizers, other biopolymers, cross-linkers, and bioactive ingredients have been explored to improve the physical and functional properties of agar-based edible films. Therefore, agar-based edible functional packaging materials could be a viable option to develop edible films for food packaging applications.