Extraction of bioactives from Fruit and Vegetables: A Review

The increase in consumers’ demand for naturalness and the trends towards plant-based foods has sparked a renewed interest in fruit and vegetables and their co-products as sources of bioactive and functional components. Fruit and vegetables are rich in bioactive compounds that contribute to the prevention of a number of degenerative diseases. These components are also present, often in even higher concentrations, in the co-products from fruit and vegetable processing. Such a fact, makes these co-products an attractive source for the extraction of bioactive, turning the extraction itself into an attractive valorization strategy for these co-products. There has been recently renewed interest in extraction methods, notably with a process intensification using physical phenomena and the search for alternative solvents. In the following we explain two main conditions that must be met for the extraction of bioactive from fruit and vegetables to be economically interesting are the activity or functionality of the molecules must have a market potential; and It must be present in an amount that is compatible with its market in an inexpensive co-product, or the market potential must be sufficient for specific production. This review will present the main bioactive in fruit and vegetables, and their co-products and the precautions to preserve these molecules in the food processing chain, with the main focus on the pros and cons of recently proposed extraction developments, particularly on extraction mechanisms, sample pre-treatment, and solvent choice. The reviewed topic include the following: • Bioactives in fruit and vegetables: chemical classes and activities. • Co-products from fruit and vegetable processing and their stabilization. • Recent developments in extraction methods.