A CIRCULAR ECONOMY APROACH FOR THE VALORIZATION OF ORANGE PEEL WASTE TO ESTABLISH FOOD SAFETY

Food safety and food waste management remain two major challenges in Europe, with enormous effects on the economy, the environment and public health. Each year 23 million cases of foodborne illness and 5000 deaths are reported in Europe.

At the same time, one third of food produced for human consumption is wasted because it is considered unfit for consumption, which amounts to approximately 1.3 billion tons each year.

Therefore, the development of innovative measures to reduce food waste presents a viable alternative in a situation where new solutions are desperately required.

In this sense, the development of circular economies that revalorize byproducts and residues of food industries as products that can be reused is a promising research avenue.WASTEtoSAFETY will confront this challenge by developing the scientific basis to implement a circular economy that uses waste from the citrus industry to extend the shelf life of fresh produce from the Mediterranean area.

Namely, it will optimize two “green” methods (microwave & ultrasound) for the extraction of essential oils (EO) from orange peel. The EO will be used as the basis for two food preservation technologies: a washing solution and an active packaging.

The project will also evaluate their potential impact on the food chain, through a quantitative microbiological risk assessment (QMRA), a Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) combined with a Material Flow Analysis.

WASTEtoSAFETY will thus provide tangible advances to the field of Food Science, developing a noticeable solution for the revalorization and utilization of citrus waste. It will also open new research avenues related to the upscaling of these technologies to an industrial level.