Challenges and Opportunities in Managing Fruit and Vegetable Waste: A Comprehensive Review
Challenges and Opportunities in Managing Fruit and Vegetable Waste: A Comprehensive Review
Sana Nawaz1, Shahzor Gul Khaskheli1*, Aijaz Hussain Soomro1, Inayatullah Rajper2, Saghir Ahmed Sheikh3, Ashfaque Ahmed Khaskheli1 and Shaista Soomro1
ABSTRACT
This review examines fruit and vegetable (FV) production, characteristics, and waste types, focusing on the extraction of target bioactive compounds. The review highlights the substantial amount of waste generated throughout the FV supply chain, resulting from inadequate management practices in fields, harvesting, processing, transportation, storage, and distribution. This waste not only represents a loss of food but also leads to degradation of valuable components, including bioactive compounds, with significant implications for various industries and applications. Common and unconventional manufacturing processes for FV waste utilization are discussed, emphasizing the importance of adopting new technologies to achieve high recovery rates of substances that are bioactive. These extracted compounds hold potential applications in food, medicine, cosmetics, chemistry, and functional foods. Fruits and vegetables are highly valuable horticultural crops, offering health benefits and culinary versatility. However, substantial losses and waste pose significant challenges in the modern food industry and present major economic and environmental concerns. Notably, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reports that waste and losses are highest in FVs among all types of food, accounting for up to 60% of total losses. Most of this waste consists of seeds, husks, skins, and other components abundant in health-promoting bioactive substances, including oils, vitamins, dietary fibre, carotenoids, and polyphenols. Making use of FV waste to extract these bioactive compounds represents a crucial step towards sustainable development. This review covers various types of FV waste, extraction technologies, and potential applications of the obtained bioactive compounds, offering insights into strategies for waste reduction and resource optimization in the FV industry.
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