Dear Colleagues,

In recent decades, the use of natural products has been increasingly promising and interesting since they have proven their ability to possess numerous beneficial properties for human health. In particular, a balanced diet model, rich in fruits and vegetables and ensuring the intake of natural products has been shown to reduce or prevent the occurrence of many chronic diseases. However, choosing to consume large quantities of fruit and vegetables has led to an increase in the amount of waste products. This could create some difficulties:

1) First of all, there may be an alteration of environmental sustainability.

2) Second, disposal costs could increase enormously.

3) Finally, incorrect disposal would increase environmental pollution.

To date, in order to remove the increased production of waste generated in the agricultural sector, new regulations are being drawn up to define the criteria for food waste management. In this direction, the concept of a "by-product" is born, that instead of being a waste product, is a compound from which you can still obtain something beneficial following industrial processing. Therefore, by-products represent a rich source of bioactive compounds and in recent decades, many alternative methods of using fruit and vegetable waste have been developed. In Italy, the main focus of agricultural production includes the processing of citrus fruits and the oil industry.

The purpose of this Special Issue is to collect papers in which the waste products of plant extracts are appropriately used and processed, reducing pollution and increasing the value of the individual extract.

Dr. Jessica Maiuolo
Guest Editor

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