**1. Introduction**

According to FAO (2019), approximately 14% of the world's food production is lost, resulting in a contribution of 8–10% to global greenhouse gas emissions [1]. Thus, food waste is a significant economic, environmental, and social issue. Consequently, ensuring sustainable consumption and production patterns by reducing food losses along production and supply chains is one of the United Nations' 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development targets [2]. Food lost waste (FLW) can be defined as the mass of food wasted during food chains. FLW can occur during production, postharvest, and processing stages.

One of the solutions to reduce FLW is the extension of food shelf life by innovative packaging technologies. Food packaging has a critical role in the food supply chain. Its basic function is containing food, facilitating its transport, and preventing any physical damage. Moreover, food packaging should preserve food safety and quality from

the production stage until consumption [3]. Hence, the packaging acts as a barrier to protect the food from many environmental factors including oxygen, light, moisture, dust, pests, volatiles, and both microbiological and chemical contamination. Furthermore, packaging contributes to establishing convenient storage conditions for the consumer, which reduces food degradation [4].

Food packaging's role is continuously being ameliorated in response to consumer needs. Who are always willing for healthier, safer, and higher quality foods with long shelf life. In this optic active packaging (AP) was developed as a novel method of food preservatives [5]. Taking into account that AP is defined by the European regulation (EC) No 450/2009, as systems designed to *deliberately incorporate components that would release or absorb substances into or from the packaged food or the environment surrounding the food* [6]. Active packaging including antioxidant packaging, antimicrobial packaging, moisture absorbers, carbon dioxide emitters, and ethanol emitters. AP systems can be subdivided into active releasing systems (emitters) and active scavenging system (absorbers) [5]. AP scavenging systems are oxygen scavenger, moisture scavenger, and ethylene absorber. The presence of moisture in packaging affects food quality including appearance and texture. Several desiccants such as Zeolits and silica are usually used to prevent these problems [7]. Ethylene is responsible for chlorophyll degradation; moreover, it may be incriminated in shortening life of leafy products. Therefore, using ethylene scavengers, including Zeolites, nanoparticles and potassium permanganate can prevent food degradation [7].

The presence of oxygen in packaging can lead to product oxidation and the development of several aerobic microorganisms, resulting in the loss of some nutritional elements and the modification of color and taste. That is why using oxygen scavenging (OS) agents is a useful solution. Oxygen-scavenging gents can essentially include metallic, organic, polymer-based, or enzyme-based [8].

Metallic OS such as iron powder, activated iron, ferrous oxide, Co (II), iron salt, and Zn are oxidized in the presence of moisture. Iron-based OS are the most used agents for the conservation of packaged food, due to their low price and efficiency. However, using iron-based scavenging films have some drawbacks such as metal contamination of food and the reduction of its efficiency in high temperature [8]. Hence, researchers are substituting iron-based OS by organic agents (OA) such as tocopherol, ascorbic acid, ascorbic acid salts, isoascorbic acid, catechol, hydroquinone, sorbose, lignin, polyunsaturated fatty acids gallic acid, characterized by their low-molecular-weight oligomers. These agents have the possibility to be added to oxygen-scavenging polymers or polymer films. Indeed, side chains react with oxygen, or the backbone is broken apart when the polymer reacts with oxygen. Despite the advantages of organicbased scavenging films, it presents several drawbacks such as its relatively high cost and lower scavenging activity [9]. Polymer-based oxygen scavengers presents a new side of OS agents such as polymer-metal complexes, polyolefin, and oxidation-reduction resins. The main drawback of polymer-based oxygen scavengers is the possibility of by-product generation, such as organic acids, ketones, or aldehydes, during the reaction between oxygen and polyunsaturated molecules such as fatty acids affecting the color and the flavor of food products [10]. Another approach is, also used for oxygen scavenging in food packaging is the use of enzyme such as the mixture glucose oxidase and catalase. United enzyme oxygen scavenging systems are sensitive to variations in water activity, pH, salt content, and temperature.

Recently, natural products gained in popularity over synthetic products because of their 'safe status' and their lower perceived risk. Several studies have shown that natural product sources including flavonoids, polyphenols, tocopherols, and essential oils (EOs), extracted from plants may be valuable in food industry. These molecules are reported to be potential candidates for being included in AP [11, 12]. EOs are characterized by their complex and rich composition, conferring them a potential antioxidant and antimicrobial activity [12, 13]. The present study will focus on the possibilities of using EOs as effective alternatives or complements to synthetic chemical compounds in the AP system.
