Nanocellulose in bio-based food packaging applications

•Nanocelluloses have been used as reinforcements or matrices for bio-based films.•Cellulose nanocrystals and nanofibrils have proven to be effective reinforcements.•Bacterial cellulose sheets may be used intact or disintegrated to produce films.•Active antimicrobial films have been obtained using nanocellulose.•Uses of nanocellulose for food packaging have been reviewed.

Cellulose nanostructures have been widely studied as components of materials for a variety of applications including food packaging. They are usually incorporated as a reinforcement phase in nanocomposites (as cellulose nanocrystals or cellulose nanofibrils). In other cases, cellulose nanostructures have been used as matrices for films-bacterial cellulose (BC) deserving a special attention in this context, since it is produced as naturally nanostructured membranes, which may grow in a medium containing other biopolymers (producing bottom-up built bionanocomposites), be impregnated with other components, or be disintegrated into nanofibribils or even nanocrystals. This review summarizes findings and prospective applications of nanocellulose for bio-based materials to be used in food packaging (including active packaging).