The waste for the preparation of minimally processed products: an opportunity?

Over the years, fresh-cuts have become a mainstream commodity and have been the fastest growing segment of the produce sector in many countries around the world, with a value approaching 15.5 million $ in 2007. The advantage for the consumer to use ready prepared fruits and vegetables are numerous, the most important being the time saved in the preparation of the product before consumption and the absence of wastes. Actually, in the case of fresh-cuts, the burden of waste disposal is transferred from the consumer to the companies preparing the produce. As a matter of fact, one of the main challenges of the industry has been to safely and ecologically discard wastes at a low cost. The amount of waste for the preparation of fresh-cuts can indeed be massive; for instance, up to 30 % of melons, 20 % of carrots and 33 % of lettuce are wasted in the fresh-cut preparation process. Strategies have been implemented to mitigate the impact and the costs of? the disposal of these residues to landfill. Companies are composting, generating electricity through methanization, and making animal feeds to get rid of the wastes. Another strategy, which is getting more and more credence, is to give added value to the residues by extracting valuable bioactive molecules aimed to the nutraceuticals and cosmetics industry. The present talk will review the molecules that can be extracted from fresh-cuts and sold to the ingredient market. An integrated model for extracting bioactive molecules from fresh-cuts wastes will be presented and discussed. Original tittle, authors and source: Smart Ecological Use of Fresh-cuts Waste Disposal: from Farm to PharmY. Desjardins1, S. Leonard2, N. Aflaki1, A. Kamel1, P. Angers1, A. Gosselin21Centre de recherche en horticulture, Institut des Nutraceutiques et des Aliments Fonctionnels, FSAA, Universite Laval, Quebec, Quebec, Canada, G1V 0A6. Yves.desjardins@fsaa.ulaval.ca2NutraCanada, 240 route Ste-Marie, Champlain, Quebec, Canada G0X 1C0 II ISHS International Conference on Quality Management of Fresh Cut Produce: Convenience Food for a Tasteful Life, 17-21 July 2011, Turin - Italy The picture belongs to ocioreal.com