Sustainable and Health-Protecting Food Ingredients from Bioprocessed Food by-Products and Wastes

Dietary inadequacy and nutrition-related non-communicable diseases (N-NCDs) represent two main issues for the whole society, urgently requesting solutions from researchers, policy-makers, and other stakeholders involved in the health and food system. Food by-products and wastes (FBPW) represent a global problem of increasing severity, widely recognized as an important unsustainability hotspot, with high socio-economic and environmental costs. Yet, recycling and up-cycling of FBPW to produce functional foods could represent a solution to dietary inadequacy and risk of N-NCDs onset. Bioprocessing of FBPW with selected microorganisms appears to be a relatively cheap strategy to yield molecules (or rather molecules mixtures) that may be used to fortify/enrich food, as well as to formulate dietary supplements. This review, conjugating human health and sustainability in relation to food, describes the state-of-the-art of the use of yeasts, molds, and lactic acid bacteria for producing value-added compounds from FBPW. Challenges related to FBPW bioprocessing prior to their use in food regard will be also discussed: (i) loss of product functionality upon scale-up of recovery process; (ii) finding logistic solutions to the intrinsic perishability of the majority of FBPW; (iii) inserting up-cycling of FBPW in an appropriate legislative framework; (iv) increasing consumer acceptability of food and dietary supplements derived from FBPW
This research was funded by the project SYSTEMIC “an integrated approach to the challenge of sustainable food systems: adaptive and mitigatory strategies to address climate change and malnutrition”, Knowledge hub on Nutrition and Food Security, that has received funding from national research funding parties in Belgium (FWO), France (INRA), Germany (BLE), Italy (MIPAAF), Latvia (IZM), Norway (RCN), Portugal (FCT), and Spain (AEI) in a joint action of JPI HDHL, JPI-OCEANS and FACCE-JPI launched in 2019 under the ERA-NET ERAHDHL (n° 696295). Francisca Rodrigues (CEECIND/01886/2020) is thankful for her contract financed by FCT/MCTES—CEEC Individual 2020 Program Contract