Food Industry By-Products as a Source of Phytochemical Compounds

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to invite you to submit original articles or reviews to the Special Issue of Foods entitled “Food Industry By-Products as a Source of Phytochemical Compounds”.

Phytochemicals, or phytonutrients, are a group of biologically active substances from plants. They have a functional value for the human body, acting in terms of protection against or prevention of disease. So far, over a thousand different phytochemicals have been identified in different plants and their fruits. Modern research aims to identify and explain the possible benefits of these compounds for human health, and also aims to isolate them. For extraction and isolation, the innovative green extraction methods are currently an attractive research topic in the multidisciplinary areas of food technology, biotechnology, nutrition, pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries, applied chemistry, etc. Therefore, it is very important to find the most efficient method for the extraction of certain phytochemicals from selected sources.

Large quantities of solids are created during the processing of raw materials from plants in the food processing industry every year, and their storage, processing, and management present a serious ecological and economic problem. The large quantities of by-products created every day are mostly managed through disposal sites or by making cattle fodder. Therefore, every industry has the goal of fully using their raw materials in the production process while creating as little waste as possible, where waste is not necessarily “waste”, but a by-product or raw material in some future process. There is great interest today to use by-products from the food industry for various purposes because they contain many potentially useful substances/phytochemicals, and they could represent significant raw materials in the production/development of new products.

We believe that a Special Issue in the journal Foods focused on phytochemicals from food by-products will provide an overview of the current status and future developments in the field.

The Special Issue will cover the following scientific topics:

• Valorization of food waste and/or food industry by-products;
• Innovative methods for the extraction of phytochemicals from food/agricultural waste and by-products;
• Polyphenols and other antioxidants and their influence on human health;
• Development of functional food;
• Process design using optimization methods.

We kindly invite and encourage you to submit your original articles or reviews, and look forward to receiving your work.

Prof. Dr. Drago Šubarić
Prof. Dr. Stela Jokić
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Foods is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.