Novel antioxidant-active food packaging based on olive oil byproducts extracts

Food waste reduction remains a major challenge in the European Union, where annual losses exceed 88 million tons. Active food packaging offers a sustainable strategy to extend shelf-life and maintain product quality. This study evaluated the antioxidant performance of natural extracts from olive by-products stone, leaf and pomace obtained through a green ethanol-based extraction. Polyphenolic profiles were determined by UHPLC-DAD, and antioxidant capacity was measured using DPPH assays, with olive stone extract showing the best activity (EC50 = (63.6 ± 4.6) mg/L). Total biophenol contents ranged from 10 g/kg to 130 g/kg, with high levels of gallic acid and related polyphenols. Among all, olive stone extracts exhibited the strongest performance in terms of antioxidant power percentage ((84.4 ± 1.6) %AP). Packaging films incorporating these extracts significantly delayed lipid oxidation in minced beef meat with 50% fat, reducing it to 18.4% after 10 days versus 46.6% in the control, demonstrating strong potential for sustainable industrial application.