Insect-derived materials for food packaging-A review

Abstract

Due to the increasing global population and the serious environmental pollution, human beings face increased demand for high-quality nutritious food and are showing increased willingness to adopt green materials. Edible insects are considered to be a core source of nutrition for the future. Insect ingredients as edible food packaging will be a help to solve human nutritional needs and augment green environmental protection. Insect-derived films are basically at the level of small-scale research in the laboratory, and the order Orthoptera are the current research focus. Chitin extracted from insects to make packaging films has natural antibacterial advantages. In terms of mechanical properties, the chitin films can have a tensile stress of up to 89.6 MPa. In terms of light transmittance, insect protein films have a greater shading rate, 6.168 %. Generally, insect-derived food packaging films still need more exploration and research to enrich the basis of practical operation and theoretical research.