Essential oils (EOs) have emerged as promising natural alternatives to synthetic food preservatives owing to their broad-spectrum antimicrobial, antioxidant, antifungal, and antibiofilm activities. However, their practical application in food systems remains limited by high volatility, oxidative instability, hydrophobicity, uncontrolled release behavior, and inconsistent performance within complex food matrices.

This review introduced a reprogramming paradigm for EO valorization through the integration of programmable delivery architectures, process intensification (PI), artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT)-enabled sensing, and multi-omics technologies. Unlike previous reviews that primarily address extraction, antimicrobial activity, or encapsulation independently, this work adopts a systems-level perspective that links molecular mechanisms, advanced materials, intensified processing, computational intelligence, and translational implementation within a unified framework for adaptive food preservation.

Recent advances in nanostructured and stimuli-responsive delivery systems, including nanoemulsions, nanostructured lipid carriers, electrospun nanofibers, mesoporous nanomaterials, and biohybrid carriers, have enhanced EO stability, encapsulation efficiency, and controlled-release performance. PI technologies offer opportunities to improve extraction efficiency, sustainability, and manufacturing scalability, whereas AI, machine learning, IoT-enabled sensing, image-based food quality assessment, digital twins, and multi-omics analytics provide powerful tools for predictive optimization, real-time monitoring, and mechanistic elucidation of EO–food–microbe interactions. Nevertheless, significant challenges persist, including limited scalability, food matrix complexity, sensory constraints, fragmented datasets, poor interoperability, regulatory uncertainty, and insufficient industrial validation. This review identifies interconnected scientific, engineering, and digital bottlenecks and proposes a comprehensive gap–solution framework and strategic research roadmap. A conceptual foundation for intelligent, closed-loop EO preservation systems capable of adaptive and predictive functionality is presented. Collectively, this review advances EO research beyond conventional preservation approaches toward scalable, sustainable, and digitally integrated food preservation systems aligned with next-generation industrial and circular bioeconomy objectives.