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About one-third of the food produced globally is lost or wasted, with production-to-retailing accounting for the major stages in which food is lost. Among food commodity, fresh produce have the highest rate and percentage of losses due to deterioration, especially in countries with warm and humid climate. Although climate-controlled chain facitilites and transportation can address this problem, they require huge investments. A potential approach to delay deterioration affordably is to apply protective barriers directly to the produce. Here, we report the development of an active coating from low cost materials for on- and off-farm applications. First, we determined the suitable composition of corn starch and glycerol to form the coating gel. We then supplemented live Lactobacillus plantarum–a lactic acid bacterium commonly found in fermented food products–as the active ingredient to the formulation and applied it to coat fresh-cut apples as a model system. Physical analysis show that the application of the active coating delayed browning, reduced weight loss, and improved the texture stability of the fresh-cut apples whereas chemical and microbiological analyses show a slight reduction of the pH and cell viability during storage. Anti-bacterial assay of the of active coating show effective inhibition against Escherichia coli–a model food spoilage bacterium. Although these results suggest that active coating may delay produce deterioration, field trials will be needed to evaluate its efficacy in preventing losses along the supply chain–a critical component to ensuring food security.