**1. Introduction**

Active packaging, in which the packaging material performs an additional function beyond containment and basic protection, remains an area of active research with great potential for commercial applications. Active packaging has application in packaging of food, pharmaceutical, and consumer goods products, with a common goal of improving shelf life, safety, or quality of packaged goods. A number of excellent reviews have been written on targeted applications of active packaging materials with less focus on material synthesis techniques [1–5]. Synthesis can be achieved by incorporating an active agent (e.g., antioxidant, enzyme, antimicrobial, oxygen scavenger) within or at the product contact surface of a packaging material. Positioning the active agent at the product contact side (*versus* bulk incorporation) has several benefits, including retention of bulk material properties and minimizing the amount (and therefore cost) of active agent required to impart efficacy. Understanding the technologies and challenges associated with various coating methods for preparation of active packaging materials will support effective technology transfer to commercial applications. The goal of this review is to describe key technologies for preparing active packaging coatings, including embedding, layer-by-layer deposition, and photografting, with a discussion of the difference between covalent (non-migratory) and non-covalent (migratory) immobilization chemistries. We then survey the current literature for active packaging technologies using these coating methods to impart antimicrobial, antioxidant, and biocatalytic activity. Smart/intelligent packaging [6,7], in which indicating devices are incorporated into the packaging structure, and sachet-based technologies [8] are well covered in the current literature and are outside the scope of this review. We conclude with a discussion of the challenges that remain in achieving commercial translation for active packaging coatings.
