ABSTRACT
According to the recent Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) data (FAO Database (2012) at https://faostat.fao.org), one-third of the food produced around the world for human consumption is lost. This means that about 1.3 billion tonnes are wasted per year along the food supply chain, from the initial agricultural production down to the nal household consumption (Gustavsson et al. 2011). The commodities of agricultural origin represent the main part of these losses due to mechanical damage and/or spillage during harvesting, post-harvest handling and storage, distribution, and consumption. Moreover, the industrial processing of crops is a source of losses as well as wastes and by-products during the washing, peeling, slicing, and boiling processes as well as other transformations.
