## 1 Introduction  
Antimicrobial Peptides can be defined as the molecules of the innate immune system present in all life forms, ranging from bacteria to human beings. The innate immune system is a defence system working non-specifically against injury or infection in the barrier surface [1]. AMPs are composed of a sequence of amino acid ranging from 5 to 50 chains, usually L-amino acids [2]. Most of the AMPs are positively charged peptides (due to a high content of arginine and lysine residues) that are capable of destroying pathogens directly. The benefit of using peptides as antimicrobial agents is that it shows effectiveness against Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, including multidrug-resistant bacteria [2, 3]. Most of the AMPs function by disrupting the physical structure of the microbial membrane and/or by targeting intracellular bodies [4]. AMPs have proven to have the ability to fight against various health issues due to the presence of immunomodulatory properties [5]. AMPs are effective in preventing skin cancer, treating wound infection and limiting autoimmune diabetes [6, 7, 8]. Promising results of AMPs have suggested its use in novel therapeutic drugs [4].  
AMPs can be synthesised from animals, plants, protozoa, fungi and bacteria. Among all the species, insects are found to be the largest living entity of AMPs because of their excellent ability to tolerate changes and their resistant property towards pathogens [9]. Insects are considered an excellent source of AMPs because of their huge biodiversity [10].  
The characterisation of the innate immune system of insects depends on cellular immunity, which includes phagocytosis, and humoral immunity, which includes the excretion of proteins and peptides [11]. The way an insect responds to fight infections can be categorised in two categories: The constitutive response, which is perpetually ready to fight, and the induced response, which takes 1-3 h to generate [12]. The first insect AMP derived was Cecropin from lepidopteran _Hyalophora cecropia_[13,14]. More than 3000 AMPs are known till now, among which 2301 are isolated from animals. _Hermetia illucens_ (the black soldier fly) is found to be the most propitious source due to its resisting ability against a huge range of pathogens [15]. _Hermetia illucens_ has a strong immune system as it feeds on decaying organism and manure, which contains high amount of pathogens. Figure 1 represents the history of antimicrobial peptides derived from insects.  
In recent years, AMPs have gained a huge interest in various fields due to their low toxicity and ability to fight a wide spectrum of pathogenic microbes. One is food packaging, involving studies based on the incorporation of AMPs into packaging material that will be in direct contact with food or interact with the headspace to resist microbial contamination in food [16]. The advantages of using antimicrobial peptides in food packaging over antimicrobial agents [17]:  
* Improves food safety by preventing the development of resistant strains of microorganisms;
* Prohibited use of some of the antimicrobial agents due to toxicological reasons;
* Distinctive mode of action of antimicrobial peptides with effective results.  
This study focuses on the harvesting of peptides that possess antimicrobial activity along with its applications in food packaging. It also highlights the future scope of antimicrobial peptides in preserving food via active packaging (Figure 2).  
Figure 1: A history of antimicrobial peptides derived from insects.