1. Nanotechnologies and food packaging: four development perspectives

The innovation paths favored by industrial players aim to respond to new consumption patterns and major societal challenges, in particular by offering packaging solutions that are safer, more practical, more compact and also more respectful of the environment. The development of nanotechnologies is part of this evolution, providing technological solutions to almost all these objectives. It does not offer new uses for packaging, but enhances its basic functions (figure 1 ). This emergence is based primarily on four major development prospects.