Economic factors of chitosan based packaging (review)

The food packaging is one of the most important part of the food industry. It concerns being a preservation technology, but it is an important factor in the marketing and logistics too. Nowadays the environment sustainability of packaging concerns the most serious between more and more other features. The ideal food packaging material should keep the food safety and quality, be easy for maintenance, inexpensive, capable for recycling and biodegradable. The most commercial packaging are the polyethylene, polypropylene, polyethylene-terephthalate based composites but they are not suitable for the circular bio economy because they are petroleum based and their waste is not biodegradable. The chitosan maybe a suitable alternative for food packaging because it is derived of the chitin, which is the second most abundant biopolymer on the Earth and its characteristics concerns for versatile application in the food industry. It is commercial, capable to preserve the quality and safety of the food or their components, environment friendly and has healthy benefits. This study is a collection about the application of chitosan based multicomponent packaging materials developed in the projects of the authors collective.