Remodeling agro-industrial and food wastes into value-added bioactives and biopolymers

Abstract

Worldwide 1.3 billion tons of food is being wasted yearly from production to household level. This is an alarming situation as this food wastes create not only environmental and health issues but also economic crisis. Interestingly these food wastes are rich sources of a wide variety of bioactive molecules. Modern methods and technologies have to be adopted to utilize these food wastes for their efficient conversion into value-added products. Rather than dumping or burning the food wastes, these can be exploited as new sources for the production of useful bioactive molecules, which in turn will reduce the food wastes effectively. The bioactives and biopolymers produced from food wastes will be cost-effective, which, will enhance the market requirement. This review summarizes the existing and advancements in the extraction of bioactive compounds from food waste andmicrobial fermentation of food waste into polymers and its applications.