Advances in the Application of Plant Protein Electrospun Fibres in Food Packaging and Preservation

ABSTRACT Plant‐derived proteins (PDPs) have emerged as promising renewable biomaterials for electrospinning because of their sustainability, biodegradability, biocompatibility and wide availability. Electrospinning provides an efficient approach for fabricating ultrafine fibres with high surface area, tunable porosity and excellent loading capacity, making PDP‐based fibres attractive for food packaging applications. However, the compact molecular structures, heterogeneous compositions, solvent‐dependent unfolding and limited molecular entanglement of PDPs often result in poor electrospinnability and unstable fibre formation. Therefore, modification strategies have been used to improve the availability of PDPs and further extend the versatility of electrospun PDP‐based fibres, including chemical treatments (glycation, phosphorylation, photo‐crosslinking), thermal processing and physical methods (ultrasound, high hydrostatic pressure and cold plasma). In addition, recent advances in active and intelligent food packaging are highlighted, with emphasis on antimicrobial and antioxidant delivery, food freshness indicators, food hazard detection and time–temperature monitoring. Finally, the article discusses current challenges, including inconsistent protein processing, limited long‐term stability, food safety evaluation and large‐scale manufacturing. Future studies should focus on developing sustainable protein resources, establishing standardized processing and safety evaluation systems and advancing scalable manufacturing technologies to promote the commercial application of PDP‐based electrospun materials in sustainable food‐packaging systems.