The development of packaging films based on renewable materials is an important and active area of research today. This is the first extensive Study focusing on film-forming properties of an agrobiomass byproduct, namely, oat spelt arabinoxylan. A plasticizer was needed for cohesive film formation, and glycerol and sorbitol were compared. The tensile properties of the films varied with the type and amount of the polyol. With a 10% (w/w) ptasticizer content, the films containing glycerol had higher tensile strength than the films containing sorbitol, but with a 40% plasticizer content, the result was the opposite. Sorbitol-plasticized films retained their tensile properties better than films with glycerol during 5 months of storage. The films were semicrystalline with similar crystallinity indices of 0.20-0.26. The largest crystallites (9.5 nm) were observed in the film with 40% glycerol. The softening of films with 40% (w/w) glycerol started at a significantly lower relative humidity (RH) than that of the corresponding sorbitol-containing films. The films with sorbitol also had lower water vapor permeability (WVP) than the films with glycerol. The films plasticized with 100% (w/w) sorbitol had a WVP value of 1.1 g mm/(m(2).d.kPa) at the RH gradient of 0/54%. The oxygen permeability of films containing 10% (w/w) glycerol or sorbitol was similar: 3 cm(3).mu m/(m(2).d.kPa) at 50-75% RH. A higher plasticizer content resulted in more permeable films. Permeation of sunflower oil through the films was not detected. (C) 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J AppI Polym Sci 114: 457-466, 2009