Abstract: As awareness of food safety grows, consumers want to know the quality of the food they buy in a quicker and more intuitive way. Food freshness indicator packaging, which offers information about the quality of food throughout transport and storage, has become more common as a result of this. Considering the safety of food, more and more researchers are using natural pigments derived from plants as indicators. This paper reviews the current status of research on food freshness indicator films using anthocyanins, curcumin, alizarin and shikonin as dyes in recent years. The principles of the application of natural pigment-based food freshness indicator films in raw meat, aquatic products, milk and fruits and the progress of their research are analysed, and the prospects of research and application of food freshness indicator packaging are also prospected.