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Review demonstrates the efficacy of bee products as functional ingredients and smart edible coatings in food matrices, highlighting sustainable alternatives to synthetic preservatives.
Bee products (i.e., honey, bee pollen, bee bread, beeswax, propolis, bee brood, and royal jelly) present significant potential as functional ingredients, in conjunction with their antimicrobial and antioxidant properties. As such, they are valuable natural alternatives to synthetic additives in food preservation and enhancement systems. Recent trends in food processing technology demonstrate the incorporation of bee products for innovative gastronomic applications, emerging as powerful functional ingredients in the enrichment of sensorial, nutritional, and preservative properties of foods. The development of bee product-based smart edible coatings is a breakthrough in sustainable food packaging practices, providing enhanced mechano-functional properties to the food matrix (i.e., regulation of oxygen and water vapor exchange, preservation and protection, flexibility and elasticity). Especially being represented by biopolymer-based matrices, these multifunctional innovations can be employed for superior storage and elongation of shelf-life for fruits, vegetables, meat, poultry, and fish. Despite this existing potential for revolutionizing gastronomic applications, bee products present several limitations which must be addressed. This review aimed to research bee products’ integration into modern gastronomic systems, in the context of environmental issues and rapidly changing consumer preferences, while offering a base for solving future limitations and issues.
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Mărgăoan et al. (2026) studied this question.
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