Modern Nanobiosensor Approaches for Intelligent Food Packaging: A Review

Food safety remains a major global challenge due to microbial contamination, spoilage, and chemical hazards in modern food supply chains. Conventional detection methods are often slow, destructive, and unsuitable for real‐time monitoring. Recent advances in nanobiosensor‐enabled intelligent packaging provide rapid, sensitive, and non‐invasive detection of pathogens, spoilage metabolites, and food contaminants. This review critically examines electrochemical, optical, piezoelectric, and electromagnetic nanobiosensors and evaluates the role of metallic nanoparticles, carbon‐based nanomaterials, nanozymes, and biodegradable polymers in enhancing sensing performance and packaging compatibility. Particular emphasis is placed on microbial load detection, real‐food matrix applications, and packaging‐integrated sensing systems, which remain underexplored in previous reviews. Comparative discussion of analytical parameters such as sensitivity, detection limits, response time, and stability is also presented. In addition, recent developments in RFID‐, NFC‐, and IoT‐enabled smart packaging, wireless nanosensor networks, and pH‐responsive indicators are discussed with respect to commercialization potential. Challenges associated with nanomaterial migration, toxicity, regulatory approval, and large‐scale fabrication are critically evaluated. Overall, nanobiosensor‐integrated intelligent packaging shows strong potential for improving food safety, extending shelf life, reducing food waste, and enabling real‐time quality monitoring. Future research should focus on safe‐by‐design nanomaterials, scalable manufacturing, and AI‐assisted predictive smart packaging systems.