Zein's backdrop accomplish it admired in bonbon foods and pharmaceuticals, in antagonism with insect shellac. It is now acclimated as a blanket for candy, nuts, fruit, pills, and added encapsulated foods and drugs. In the United States, it may be labeled as "confectioner's glaze" (which may aswell accredit to shellac-based glazes) and acclimated as a blanket on bakery articles or as "vegetable protein." It is classified as Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) by the U.S. Aliment and Drug Administration. For drug coating, zein is adopted over aliment shellac, back it is all accustomed and requires beneath testing per the USP monographs.
Zein can be added bonbon into resins and added bioplastic polymers, which can be extruded or formed into a array of artificial products. With accretion ecology apropos about constructed coatings (such as PFOA) and the accepted college prices of hydrocarbon-based petrochemicals, there is added focus on zein as a raw actual for a array of controllable and renewable polymer applications, decidedly in the cardboard industry. Added affidavit for a renewed absorption in zein cover affair about the landfill costs of plastics, and customer absorption in accustomed substances. There are aswell a amount of abeyant new aliment industry applications.
Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and at William Wrigley Jr. Company accept afresh been belief the achievability of application zein to alter some of the gum abject in chewing gum. They are aswell belief medical applications such as application the zein atom to "carry biocompounds to targeted sites in the animal body".There are a amount of abeyant aliment assurance applications that may be accessible for zein-based packaging according to several researchers. A aggressive architect is researching the use of zein to assure MRE aliment packages. Added packaging/food assurance applications that accept been researched cover arctic foods, ready-to-eat chicken, and cheese and aqueous eggs. Aliment advisers in Japan accept acclaimed the adeptness of the zein atom to act as a baptize barrier.