Development of an edible food packaging gelatin/zein based nanofiber film for the shelf-life extension of strawberries.

[Display omitted] • An edible food packaging gelatin/zein nanofiber film was developed. • The nanofiber films were prepared by electrospinning technology. • The nanofiber films showed excellent antioxidant capacity. • The nanofiber films exhibited great antibacterial activity. • The film could keep the freshness of strawberries as long as 7 days. An edible food packaging gelatin/zein nanofiber film co-loaded with cinnamaldehyde (CA)/thymol (THY) was developed, which possessed outstanding features conducive to strawberries preservation. Firstly, the synergistic antibacterial behavior of CA and THY was investigated. Then CA and THY were co-loaded into gelatin/zein nanofiber films by electrospinning technology. The addition of CA and THY increased water contact angle to 85.1° after 10 s and decreased the water vapor transmission rate of 3.1×10−8 g·mm−1·h−1·Pa−1. The tensile strength was 1.30 MPa and the elongation at break was 185%. The nanofiber films exhibited good shielding effect of ultraviolet–visible light and excellent antioxidant capacity with DPPH free radical scavenging percentage of 99.9% in 4 h. The nanofiber films (12.5 mg/mL) could achieve significant inhibition effects on Escherichia coli ATCC 25922 with the bacteriostatic ratio of 67.5%, Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 6538 and Listeria monocytogenes ATCC 19115 with the antibacterial ratios of 100%. A real-time study on the nanofiber films as fruit packaging materials was carried out on strawberries and the packaged strawberries kept their freshness as long as 7 days at room temperature. Therefore, the GZ/CT nanofiber film prepared in this work has good application potential in the field of fruit packaging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]