From Industry 4.0 to 5.0: Exploring the Opportunity of Biodegradable Freshness Indicator Packaging

Abstract

With the introduction of Industry 5.0, the development of the food packaging industry was inspired by core principles of sustainability, human-centricity, and resilience. Biodegradable polymers, characterized by nontoxic, abundant sources, renewability, and facile degradability, are anticipated to serve as sustainable alternatives to conventional petroleum-based plastics. Moreover, freshness indicator packaging has addressed the limitations of traditional packaging with single-function and garnered significant attention. This packaging directly assesses food freshness without the need for complex operational procedures to enhance consumer convenience. Concurrently, the rapid advancement of digital technology has provided new attempts to address adversities in industrial development. Indeed, emerging evidence increasingly indicates that digital technologies—encompassing machine learning, big data, hierarchical systems, the Internet of Things, and 3D printing, as well as advancements such as deep learning, blockchain, cloud–edge collaboration, the Internet of Everything, and 4D printing—are poised to exert a substantial impact on food packaging. The interdisciplinary integration of digital and packaging technology was expected for material selection, structural design, and technological evolution to offer more suitable solutions and intuitive presentation formats. Thus, the biodegradable freshness indicator packaging and its opportunity should have urgent attention from the food industry 4.0 to 5.0. In this review, we summarized the classification, sources, characteristics, and applications of biodegradable biopolymers in food packaging. Meanwhile, the fundamental principles, research progress, and applications of freshness indicator packaging were discussed in detail. The paper highlighted the attempts and prospects for the codevelopment of digital and packaging technology.