Consumer demands for more natural foods, and also for environ-mental protection have excited the development of new packagingmaterials. Edible films and coatings have been received consider-able attention over the last years due to their possibility to useas edible packaging materials over synthetic ones and to reducethe environmental pollution. Besides, development of edible films and coatings can reduce the post-harvest losses and also can pro-vide less expensive packaging materials for industry and lower theprices of the food products. Edible films and coatings are defined asthin layers of materials used on food products that have importanteffects on their conservation, distribution, and marketing. Ediblefilms and coatings can protect the product from mechanical dam-age, physical, chemical, and microbiological activities. Such filmscan be a carrier of antioxidants, antimicrobial, nutraceuticals, andflavorings agents or other additives to improve the mechanicalintegrity, handling, and quality of food products. Different biopoly-mers such as polysaccharides, proteins, and their blends are appliedto form edible films and coatings. Among these biopolymers, algi-nates and carrageenans have been frequently used in recent yearsdue to their good barrier properties to oxygen, carbon dioxide,and lipids as well as their superb mechanical properties (tensilestrength and elongation at break). Commercialization of biopoly-mer films is limited due to their high sensitivity to moisture andtheir compatibility with other emergent stress factors such ashigh pressures, electric fields, ultrasound, microwave radiation, andgamma radiation. Technical information on edible films and coat-ings is far from adequate, so the food scientist has the formidabletask of developing a film for each food application.