ABSTRACT
The agrofood industry is an important sector of the economy, and its activity is regularly associated with the production of wastes. Worldwide, a large amount of agrofood industrial wastes is generated each year. They are the cheapest and most abundantly available natural carbon sources that can serve as nutrients for microbial growth, and microbes can transform industrial wastes into valuable products. In addition, the bioprocessing of agrofood industrial waste provides an opportunity to use the microorganisms for nutrient removal in waste management. The sustained development of renewable resource technology is of great importance vis-à-vis environmental concerns. Moreover, the demand for microbial polysaccharides has increased markedly in recent years, as they are potential candidates for many commercial applications in the food and pharmaceutical industries. Because of their costly production and downstream processes, industrial microbial polysaccharides such as dextran, xanthan, curdlan, gellan, and pullulan comprise an insignificant portion of the current polymer market. Therefore, many attempts should be made to develop cost-effective and environmentally friendly production processes by switching to cheaper fermentation substrates. In this chapter, various microbial polysaccharide production processes utilizing cheap agrofood industrial wastes such as syrups and molasses, sugar industry wastewater, cheese whey, and various vegetable and fruit juice wastes are discussed.
