We produced functional nanowebs, containing vanillin, having prolonged shelf-life and high temperature stability facilitated by cyclodextrin (CD) inclusion complexation. Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) nanowebs incorporating vanillin/cyclodextrin inclusion complex (vanillin/CD-IC) were produced via electrospinning technique. The vanillin/CD-IC was prepared with three types of CDs; alpha-CD, beta-CD and gamma-CD to find out the most favourable CD type for the stabilization of vanillin. PVA/vanillin/CD-IC nanofibres, having fibre diameters around similar to 200 nm, were successfully electrospun from aqueous mixture of PVA and vanillin/CD-IC. Our results indicated that vanillin with enhanced durability and high temperature stability was achieved for PVA/vanillin/CD-IC nanowebs due to complexation of vanillin with CD, whereas the PVA nanofibres without CD-IC could not effectively preserve the vanillin. Additionally, we observed that PVA/vanillin/gamma-CD-IC nanoweb was more effective for the stabilization and slow release of vanillin suggesting that the strength of interaction between vanillin and the gamma-CD cavity is stronger when compared to alpha-CD and beta-CD. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.