Responsive food packaging is an emerging field in food packaging research and the food industry. Unlike active packaging, responsive packaging systems react to stimuli in the food or the environment to enable real time food quality and food safety monitoring or remediation. This review attempts to define and clarify the different classes of food packaging technologies. Special emphasis is given to the description of responsive food packaging including its technical requirements, the state of the art in research and the current expanding market. The development and promises of stimuli responsive materials in responsive food packaging are addressed, along with current challenges and future directions to help translate research developments into commercial products.