ABSTRACT

Food industry wastes provide an excellent substrate for bioconversion as well as to extract, synthesize, and biotransform molecules. Production of nutraceuticals like polyphenolics, prebiotics, carotenoid antioxidants, polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), and bioactive peptides has already been studied. Solid-state fermentation is the most common fermentation system used for polyphenolic production from agro-food industries, while submerged fermentation is used for bioactive peptide production from liquid by-products of the dairy industry. Aspergillus spp. is the most commonly explored microbe for polyphenols extraction. Blakeslea trispora and Rhodotorula spp. are well-known to grow on food wastes and produce beta-carotene. Prebiotic oligosaccharides are formed by an array of fungi and bacteria. Oleaginous yeasts and zygomycetes fungi have shown potential for PUFA production from several agro-food wastes. This chapter is a comprehensive outlook on the production potential of the aforementioned nutraceutical molecules from food industry wastes.