Optical CO2 detectors for smart packaging of food in modified atmosphere

In the last decades, thanks to the significant application of the newest technologies applied to food production and considering consumer's awareness with respect to food safety and quality, food industry is hardly working on smart packaging, with the aim of finding out a monitoring strategy which does not require package opening. Here an optical indicator is presented, based on an agarose gel containing anthocyanins, which turns in colour as a result of the deterioration of the packaged food. The colour change has been assessed via digital microscope but also verified with a smartphone: this last method opens the way to a wide application of the indicator down to each consumer via a sensor network modality based on the IoT approach. The sensors respond to percentages of carbon dioxide usually used in the modified atmospheres of foods, such as cured meats, making them, therefore, usable as intelligent packaging able to assess their state of deterioration.