Trends in kiwifruit and byproducts valorization

Background: Kiwifruit is a worldwide appreciated fruit with significant economic and nutritionally importance. Its industrial processing generates high amount of waste, which currently exhibits low market value being mostly employed as fertilizer. Nevertheless, culled kiwifruit, underused peels, seeds or pruning remains (i.e. leaves and twinges) would be an attractive source of bioactive compounds with prospective applications in the food and non-food sectors. Kiwifruit and the corresponding wastes display a notable number of healthy features with relevant benefits for consumer's health (e.g. strong antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and protective against heart diseases, cancer, diabetes, or central nervous system diseases). Scope and approach: Overall, this work explores a new approach about nutritional composition of kiwifruit and its different by-products fractions. This review also provides an outline on the bioactive compounds found in kiwifruit, products and by-products. In parallel, it offers an updated vision of the impact of cultivation and processing conditions on their bioactive characteristics. Moreover, the positive aspects of selecting eco-friendly extraction techniques as well as green and efficient treatments to provide high value added products from underutilized kiwifruit wastes is pointed out. Key findings and conclusions: Kiwifruit and its by-products are natural resources which present several nutraceutical phytocompounds with potential commercial applications. The valorization of these waste-to-value food can be addressed through environmentally friendly extraction procedures which allow recovery of target bioactive components to enrich novel food and non-food products.

Automated summary

Kiwifruit and its by-products are natural resources that contain several nutraceutical phytochemicals with potential commercial applications. Using environmentally friendly extraction procedures to recover target bioactive components can enrich novel food and non-food products, turning waste into value.