Extraction of Bioactive Molecules from Food By-Products and Their Utilization as Functional Ingredients

Dear Colleagues,

The food supply chain deploys enough food to feed the world. However, one in every nine people suffers from hunger. Hunger is driven by complex problems like war, natural disasters, and poverty. Since a third of food produced is lost along the supply chain, food wastage plays a significant role in using up the planet's food resources.

To face with this concern, the exploitation and valorisation of food by-products becomes crucial. Biomolecules, like antioxidants, fibers, or proteins, can be extracted from food by-products, like peels, stems, seeds, husks, bran, sludges, juices, or pomaces, by different “green” extraction technologies, like supercritical fluids, ultrasound, pulsed electric field, or enzyme-assisted extraction, and, finally, turned into functional ingredients for many applications, such as food supplements, adjuvants in food processing or medicinal and pharmaceutical preparations, and ingredients for pet foods.

On this scenario, this Special Issue will try to focus on interdisciplinary research, which incorporates concepts from many different fields, including microbiology, chemical engineering, and biochemistry, with the final aim to provide solutions for the extraction of bioactives from food by-products, and their utilization as functional ingredients.

Inclusive examples of popular topics expected in this Special Issue are

1. The application of “green” or emerging technologies for the extraction of bioactive compounds from food by-products;
2. Use of bioactive compounds as
   • antioxidant ingredients
   • nutraceuticals supplements
   • compounds with pharmacological or antimicrobial activity
   • additives for retarding lipid oxidations
   • additives for limiting the heat-induced degradation reactions;
3. Qualitative and quantitative determinations of the food metabolome using advanced analytical equipment and chemometric tools, with the aim to demonstrate the functional properties of food by-products.

Prof. Matteo Scampicchio
Guest Editor

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