Valorisation of Fruit & Vegetable Wastes: A Review

Fruits and vegetables play an important part in the diets of global human population. During processing, the unused residues, such as peels, stalks, rinds, stem, leaves etc., come out as waste. Due to the high moisture content of these perishable wastes, they undergo rapid decomposition that leads to foul odour and growth of pathogens. Almost 30% of the loss occurs at the supply, retail, consumer, post-harvest and processing level. The perishable waste like peels, pomace, seeds etc., act as threat to the environment and degrade pollution-free model. The wastes are rich in protein, carbohydrates, minerals, vitamins and other phytochemicals and bioactive compounds, such as pigments, dietary fibre, essential oils, etc. Recent researches have shown that there is an increase in the utilization of these wastes for the extraction of value- added products, such as bioactive compounds, bio-colorants, organic acids, single cell protein (SCP), organic minerals, enzymes and others. The present review paper deals with the recent studies conducted on the valorisation of the fruit & vegetable waste.