Packed food and packaging materials disinfected by cold plasma

This chapter aims to introduce the applications and recent developments of using cold plasma for the decontamination and sterilization of packaged foods and food packaging materials, respectively. Decontamination of packaged foods and food packaging sterilization are crucial processes to ensuring the success of the food industry and the safety of the industry’s consumers. In these applications, cold plasma acts as a final decontamination treatment may be an effective means of removing pesticides from fresh produce products and their packaging materials. For decontamination of packed food, the dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma has been widely used. For food packaging sterilization, this chapter classifies the studies into two categories, the direct and indirect treatments. Cold plasma has led to satisfying results in decontamination in-packaged foods (mostly fresh produce) and sterilization of food packaging materials. Future research could be directed to the disinfection of a broader range of in-package foods and food packages made from the novel biodegradable polymers.