Nowadays, fruit and vegetable industries generate huge amounts of under-utilized by-products with a great economic potential. The processing by-products account from 25 up to 60% of the weight of the fruit and would be mainly made of skin and lower percentages of pulp and seeds. All their fractions present an interesting chemical composition and therefore, they could be considered as raw materials for the development of integrated biorefinery approaches. Since, several functional molecules and platform chemicals could be produced by sequential environmentally friendly processes with novel applications in the food, pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries. This review describes the current status of the research dealing with pineapple, melon, watermelon and pumpkin processing by-products, including aspects related to the technologies employed to obtain and isolate high added-value compounds from these by-products. Furthermore, a suitable biorefinery approach for their integral valorisation based on obtaining valuable multi-products is also proposed.
Keywords: Added-value products; Bioactive compounds; Biorefinery; Fruit by-products; Revalorization.
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