Food Waste Recovery Group proudly presents its official e-Course, which is now available for ISEKI Food Association members and individual non-members who are interested to enrich their knowledge in the most hype field of food science and technology. The e-course consists of 20 lectures from 12 international speakers, as well as numerous tests and quizzes, while its total duration is 30 h. It integrates theoretical and applied information from the Universal Recovery Strategy, the relevant Elsevier’s Reference Module, the two most cited articles of Trends in Food Science and Technology and Food and Bioproducts Processing as well as 6 books. A thorough description of the e-Course, instructions how to participate and resources are presented below.

Acknowledgements

Food Waste Recovery Group would like to take this opportunity to thank all lecturers for their fruitful collaboration and high quality work in bringing together different issues and technologies in an integral and comprehensive course.

Background

As long as food processing exists, non-consumed materials will be considered a substrate of treatment, minimization, or prevention. On the other hand, the prospect of recovering high added-value compounds from these materials is a scenario that started few decades ago. The first successful efforts dealt with the recovery of oil from olive kernel; the production of essential oils; flavonoids, sugars, and pectin from citrus peel, as well as the recapture of protein concentrates and lactose from cheese whey. These commercially available applications inspired the scientific community to intensify its efforts towards the valorization of all kinds of food by-products for recovery purposes. Besides, the perpetual disposal of highly nutritional proteins, antioxidants, and dietary fibers in the environment is a practice that could not be continued for a long time within the sustainability and bio-economy framework of the modern food industry. Indeed, the depletion of food sources, the fast-growing population, and the increasing need for nutritionally correct diets do not allow other alternatives to be considered.

Abstract

“Food Waste Recovery e-Course” presents the common food waste sources and respective high added-value components, while it describes the common recovery stages, conventional and emerging technologies applied from the source to the final product. It explores patented methodologies that led to commercial products and ultimately discusses the main problems behind developing a laboratory methodology to a real market product. This course is envisaged to investigate the real full-scale applications and fill the gap between academia and industry within the above topics. The main aim is to emphasize the advantages and disadvantages of processing technologies and techniques, as well as to provide a holistic approach for the recovery of valuable components from food wastes. This is conducted by adapting the different applied technologies in a recovery strategy, which could be implemented regardless of the nature of the food waste and the characteristics of the target compound in each case. Conclusively, the ultimate goal of this module is to provide a guide for anyone who wants to develop a food waste recovery application. It is intended to support researchers, scientists, food technologists, engineers, professionals, and students working or studying in the areas of food, by-products, and the environment.

Lectures

01. The Agroindustrial Sector – Α Global Perspective, Challenges & Opportunities (Charis M. Galanakis)

This lecture describes the current state of the art in the agro-industrial sector, by denoting perspectives, challenges and opportunities. The terms of sustainability, bioeconomy, biobased industries, biobased products and the biorefinery concepts are introduced. The definitions of food wastes and food losses are discussed, too.

02. Classification & Target Compounds (Charis M. Galanakis)

At this lecture, global food waste sources are presented and classified according to the main food production processes and the data obtained by Food & Agriculture Organization. The high added-value components of these sources are also discussed and targeted for recovery purposes.

03. The Universal Recovery Strategy & Conventional Technologies (Charis M. Galanakis)

This lecture describes the “Universal Recovery Strategy”, which takes into account all the necessary aspects (e.g. substrate collection and deterioration, yield optimization, preservation of target compound functionality during processing, etc.) needed for the development of a recovery process. Moreover, it describes the five-stages recovery approach (macroscopic pretreatment, macro- and micromolecules separation, extraction, purification and isolation, and product formation) and the conventional technologies applied on it.

04. Emerging Technologies, Safety & Cost issues (Charis M. Galanakis)

Utilization of conventional recovery methods are often restricted by several problems that are difficult to overcome. These include overheating of the food matrix, high energy consumption and general cost, loss of functionality and poor stability of the final product, and accomplishment of increasingly stringent legal requirements on materials safety. Following this trend, the different emerging technologies (e.g. non-thermal techniques or nanotechnology concepts) applied in each recovery stage are presented in this lecture, focusing more on the easy of use, safety and cost issues. These parameters are very critical in the case of emerging technologies, as they could be too sophisticated in comparison to the yield improvement that they are promising.

05. Scale-up Problems, Commercialized Methodologies & Applications (Charis M. Galanakis)

Commercialization of valuable components derived from food wastes is usually a four stages approach: (a) laboratory research of the recovery procedure and characterization with regard to the functional properties of the final product, (b) obtainment of patent legal rights, (c) semi-industrial (pilot plan) and industrial development of the process, and (d) accomplishment of increasingly stringent legal requirements on materials safety. The accomplishment all of the above steps is necessary in order to establish a successful product-specific process. In this lecture, a collection of related patents that have been converted to commercial applications is presented. Scale up, market problems and other restrictions concerning the production process are discussed, while potential applications of the high-added value compounds are explored.

06. Colloidal Gas Aphrons for the Separation of Macro- & Micro-molecules (Giorgia Spigno)

Colloidal Gas Aphrons (CGA) are surfactant stabilised microbubbles. They differ from regular foams since the bubbles are encapsulated in a multi-layered shell consisting of surfactant and liquid instead of a monolayer of surfactant molecules. CGA are highly suitable for separation and mass transfer applications. For example, CGA have found numerous applications for the recovery of a wide variety of valuable materials including bioproducts (i.e. proteins, bacterial cells, enzymes, carotenoids, dyes) and antioxidants. The main focus of this lecture is on the application of CGA to the recovery of bioproducts from agri-food wastes. First, characteristics of CGA and main operating parameters influencing their generation and properties are presented. Then, the basic principles of a CGA-based separation process together with the main parameters useful for evaluation of the process efficiency, are explained, together with the main operating parameters influencing separation of bioproducts. Finally, the application of CGA to the recovery of polyphenols from wine-making wastes are reported as a case study, including comments on feasibility to industrial application and economical evaluation.

07. Ultrafiltration for the Separation of Macro- & Micro-molecules (Charis M. Galanakis)

Ultrafiltration (UF) is among the conventional technologies that are utilized mainly prior or even after extraction process because it is able to separate macromolecules from smaller compounds in a physicochemical and non-destructive way. Depending on the nature of the desired separation and target compounds, concentrate or permeate stream is recaptured or rejected. This lecture provides integral information about the separation of functional compounds (derived from food wastes) using UF.

08. Isoelectric Solubilization/Precipitation for the Recovery of Protein & Lipids (Reza Tahergorabi)

The amount of fish by-products is huge and there is a large potential for making more value-added products from this raw material. On the other hand, dark chicken meat has been considered as a major underutilized commodity due to increasing demand for further processed chicken breast meat products. This is highly interesting as it has been estimated that if we succeed in utilizing more food byproducts as food for humans and as ingredients in foodstuff, health foods, nutraceuticals, pharmacy, cosmetics, etc., the added value may increase 5-fold. The overall objective of this lecture is to present the feasibility of protein and lipid recovery from muscle food byproducts by using isoelectric solubilization/ precipitation (ISP) in order to develop functional food products.

09. Ultrasonics & Microwaves in Extraction Processes (Smain Chemat)

Extraction stands as a significant operation for the recovery of active ingredients from plant kingdom. It may becomes also, to some extent, an intelligent tool for purification purposes if process optimization occurs properly. New technologies such as ultrasound-assisted extraction and microwave-assisted extraction which use less solvents and provide an interesting increase in yields in a shorter time gained more popularity. This lecture intends to explain the basics behind ultrasonic and microwave processes and gives examples for the recovery of essential oils.

10. High pressure extraction (Nagendra K. Prasad)

Extraction is the initial and significant step in purifying active ingredients from plant materials. Traditional methods like heat reflux and cold extraction are widely based on an appropriate selection of solvents, agitation and rate of mass transfer to increase the chemical solubility. Ultra High pressure-assisted extraction (UHPE), works under very high pressure ranging from 100 to 800 MPa and have been recognized as an environment-friendly technology by the Food and Drug Administration. This lecture demonstrates the application of the high pressure-assisted extraction, using litchi and longan fruits as examples.

11. Antioxidant Compounds Extraction assisted by High Pressure Processing (Francisco J. Barba)

The potential use of high pressure processing (HPP) for extraction of antioxidant compounds from different plant food matrices has recently been demonstrated. HPP belong to the environmentally friendly and energy efficient technologies being able to enhance mass transfer processes within plant or animal cellular tissues, as the permeability of cytoplasmatic membranes can be affected. This lecture describes the actual trend and the future applications of HPP to improve the extraction of antioxidant components of plant food materials and by-products.

12. Aqueous two-phase separation (Ooi Chien Wei)

Aqueous two-phase system (ATPS) has been proposed as a useful technique for the separation, purification and concentration of biomolecules. ATPS is a biphasic (liquid-liquid) system that mainly composed of aqueous solution, which is suitable for the preservation of native structure of purified biocompound. Moreover, ATPS retains the advantages of conventional liquid-liquid extraction such as high productivity, simplicity, short processing time, cost-effectiveness, scalability and versatility. ATPS becomes even more attractive and competitive when it utilizes inexpensive phase-forming chemicals and phase-recycling processes that greatly reduce the cost of bioprocessing or become more environmental friendly. This lecture demonstrates the use of ATPS in recovering valuable bioproduct from food waste. The design of ATPS protocol as simplified and rapid recovery method is also covered.

13. Overview of supercritical fluids extraction (SFE) (Juliana M. Prado)

Supercritical fluid extraction is considered an emergent technology because it presents several advantages over the traditional extraction methods, especially regarding environmental issues. Recovering bioactive compounds from plant material is its most widespread application. This lecture presents an overview of this technique.

14. Parameters that influence SFE (Juliana M. Prado)

This lecture provides basic information regarding the main parameters (raw material characteristics, pressure and temperature, use of cosolvents, extraction time, relation bed height, gravity effect) that influence supercritical fluid extraction.

15. Applications for a product development protocol (Juliana M. Prado)

This lecture describes a product development protocol for the recovery of valuable compounds from food wastes using supercritical fluids extraction technique. This protocol contains the following steps: global yield isotherms (selecting pressure and temperature), extraction kinetics (determining kinetics parameters and extraction time), scale-up (constant S/F criterion), obtaining samples and studying fractionated separation, and ultimately economic evaluation.

16. Biorefinery concept. An opportunity for improving the sustainability of coffee sector (Dolores del Castillo)

The coffee industry generates large amounts of by-products rich in carbohydrates, proteins and bioactive compounds being a low-cost source of these compounds. Moreover, the increase in coffee production makes necessary the search for sustainable strategies of revalorization of these residues. Obviously, to utilize these by-products more efficiently it is necessary to understand their potential both in terms of available nutrients and other useful components. This lecture provides an insight of the biorefinery concept for the valorization of coffee by-products.

17. Separation of isoflavones from okara: A case study (Lena Jankowiak)

Okara is a very nutritious by-product, coming from the soymilk and tofu production. In addition to fibres (mainly insoluble), proteins and fat, okara contains isoflavones in a considerable amount. The production of isoflavones from okara would not only upgrade the soymilk production, but less valuable food resources would be required for the production of those minor, but valuable components. This lecture presents a case study aiming at the development of a mild separation process for the recovery isoflavones from okara.

18. Encapsulation: the final stage (Tuyen Chan Kha)

Extraction and isolation of bioactive compound(s) from food wastes are important steps to achieve the high content of the target compound(s). Next important step is to effectively preserve the bioactive compounds in the extract and to enable desired applications, including food, pharmaceutical and agricultural. Encapsulation is one of the most effective techniques, which can be employed to protect, stabilise, and release the compounds while also enabling their solubility in an aqueous medium. Numerous encapsulation technologies, including physical, chemical and physicochemical methods, have been developed to achieve the desired functionalities of the resultant product. This lecture presents the two main processing steps of encapsulation: preparation of the formulation and encapsulation technique.

19. Adsorption: the fourth stage (Krasimir Dimitrov)

The main objective of this lecture is to describe in details the fourth stage (adsorption) of the 5-Stages Universal Recovery Process. Particularly, it contains details about the types, the theories and the kinetics of adsorption, the affecting parameters as well as the types of adsorbents.

20. Case study: valorization of black chokeberry wastes (Krasimir Dimitrov)

Aronia berries are one of the richest sources in phenolic antioxidants, particularly in anthocyanins, and are mainly used to produce fruit juice. The wastes of pressed berries (juice production by-products) still contain important amount of phenolics, and could be valorised by extracting these antioxidant molecules. An enrichment of the extracts can be necessary for some applications, and adsorption process appears as the most relevant technique for such purification. This lecture describes a case study for the selective recovery of phenolics from Aronia wastes, by integrating extraction and purification steps.

Instructions

1) Claims for participation are sent directly to ISEKI Food Association (office@iseki-food.net).

2) The duration of the course is 6 weeks and could be conducted in 4 different periods of the year, starting in one of the following dates: 1st of September, 1st of February, 1st of April or 1st June.

3) Learning progress is supervised by the coordinator of the course Dr. Charis Galanakis, who will be available to address questions. Participants should watch 5 lectures each of the 4 weeks of each learning period.

4) In Week 5, participants should fill in the self-examination quizzes and tests that have been developed as practice for the participants. Quizzes have multi-choice answers, whereas tests require multiple-skill answers. Coordinator is available for further discussion as well as answering questions after the accomplishment of these tasks.

5) In Week 6, participants are giving a final examination in communication with the coordinator. The coordinator sends the questions via e-mail to the participant and the latest sends back the answers within 2h.

6) The Final Grade (in %-percentage units) is given by the coordinator taking into account the sum of the grades of individual answers in the final examination.

7) After the successful accomplishment of the course, participants will get a certificate of completion (Final Grade>50%) that includes the obtained grade or a certificate of attendance (Final Grade<50%) that does not include the obtained grade.

Resources

1. Galanakis, C.M. (2016). High Value-Added Compounds from Food Waste. Reference Module in Food Science, Elsevier, pp. 1-8.
2. Food Waste Recovery: Processing Technologies & Techniques (2015). Eds. by Galanakis, C.M., Elsevier-Academic Press. ISBN: 9780128003510.
3. Galanakis, C. M. (2012). Recovery of high added-value components from food wastes: conventional, emerging technologies and commercialized applications. Trends in Food Science & Technology, 26(2), 68-87.
4. Galanakis, C. M. (2013). Emerging technologies for the production of nutraceuticals from agricultural by-products: A viewpoint of opportunities and challenges. Food and Bioproducts Processing, 91, 575-579.
5. Nutraceutical and functional food components: effects of innovative processing techniques (2017). Eds. by Galanakis, C.M., Elsevier-Academic Press. ISBN: 9780128052570.
6. Olive Mill Waste: Recent advances for the Sustainable Management (2017). Eds. by Galanakis, C.M., Elsevier-Academic Press. ISBN: 9780128053140.
7. Handbook of grape processing by-products: sustainable solutions (2017). Eds. by Galanakis, C.M. Elsevier-Academic Press. ISBN: 9780128098707.
8. Handbook of coffee processing by-products: sustainable applications (2017). Eds. by Galanakis, C.M. Elsevier-Academic Press.
9. Innovation Strategies for the food industry: tools for implementation (2016). Eds. by Galanakis, C.M., Elsevier-Academic Press. ISBN: 9780128037515

About the Coordinator

Charis M. Galanakis is an interdisciplinary scientist with a fast-expanding work that balances between food, environment, sustainability, industry and academia. His research targets mainly the separation and recovery of functional macro- and micro-molecules from different food wastes and by-products, as well as their implementation as bioactive compounds in food and other products. He has defined for the first time the new term and discipline of “Food Waste Recovery”, as well as established the relevant Open Innovation Network with an ultimate goal to inspire related professionals to extract high added-value compounds from wasted by-products in all stages of food production (from agriculture to the consumer) and re-utilize them in the food chain. He is the research & innovation director of Galanakis Laboratories (Chania, Greece), and serves as an editorial board member and subject editor of Food and Bioproducts Processing and Food Research International. His full book portfolio with Elsevier can be found here.