Advances in Controlled-Release Packaging for Food Applications

Controlled-release packaging (CRP) represents a frontier in food preservation, enabling the targeted and sustained delivery of active agents to extend shelf life, enhance food safety, and reduce waste. Diverging from previous efforts, this review provides a critical examination of fundamental release mechanisms (diffusion, swelling, and biodegradation), emphasizing release kinetics and their links to functional outcomes in real foods, an aspect often overlooked. Recent breakthroughs in stimuli-responsive packaging materials, such as temperature, pH, humidity, enzyme, and externally triggered (light, electric, and magnetic) systems, are systematically summarized. Special attention is given to design strategies, smart sensing integration, and mathematical modeling of release behavior. Furthermore, this review uniquely bridges the gap between laboratory research and industrial implementation by addressing translational challenges, including regulatory hurdles, environmental sustainability, and consumer acceptance. By combining a mechanism-driven perspective with a sustainability framework, this work offers original insights and outlines future research directions to accelerate the development of intelligent, eco-friendly, and industry-ready CRP technologies.