Environmental Sustainability, Food Quality and Convertibility of Bio-Based Barrier Coatings for Fibre-Based Food Packaging: A Semisystematic Review

The ongoing legislative drive to reduce plastic consumption and promote the circularity of materials in Europe is reshaping food packaging market dynamics and making sustainability a key competitive factor in the sector. Legislation accelerates research and innovation in bio-based, biodegradable and recyclable alternatives and motivates the industry to adopt sustainable designs while enhancing compliance with environmental standards. Renewable and natural resource-based materials, such as polysaccharides, nanocellulose, lignin, lipids, phenolic compounds and proteins, have been extensively investigated in the last decade. Their use in dispersion coatings and biopolymer compounds for paper and paperboard barriers is often referred to as a sustainable packaging solution. This semisystematic review compiled available quantitative and qualitative data on the environmental sustainability, food quality and convertibility of novel bio-based barrier coatings for food packaging. The results highlight a research gap in assessing environmental performance and the overuse of the term ‘sustainable’ and ‘biodegradable’. However, convertibility and film formability issues remain major obstacles that must be overcome before the scaling up of production of such coatings. Although bio-based coatings demonstrate potential to extend the shelf life of certain fruits and mushrooms compared with uncoated paper or paperboard, numerous studies lack direct comparisons with conventional packaging methods. Further exploration of these aspects will facilitate science- and data-driven innovation and decision-making in industry, policy and academia in the development of sustainable bio-based packaging.