Biovalorization: How to Turn Food Waste into Value

During the last couple of months, many of us have realized that items such as sunflower oil or avocados are not produced in the basement of supermarkets, and that some of them may have travelled across the Globe in order to reach our kitchens. Indeed, on its way from the often far-away fields of harvest to our dinner plate, food has been on a long and costly journey on which many by-products have emerged, from peels and pomace on the one side to animal manure and rotten charges on the other. Shockingly, around 80 kg of food is wasted each year per adult in Western societies such as Germany, either on its way to the consumer or by the consumer itself. By-products of food production, food waste, food loss, food surplus, and leftovers are therefore abundant, despite attempts to avoid waste, from new “farm to fork” production strategies to “lick your plate with pride” consumer campaigns. Thus, a change of attitude towards these biological materials from farms, (super-)markets, restaurants, and private households is probably the most elegant way forward. Rather than treating them as a nuisance to the waste management system, one may also consider them as an abundant resource - a source of valuable biological materials and important natural substances.

Indeed, to turn the typical biological waste from food production or consumption into a renewed value is a challenge at the heart of any circular bioeconomy aiming at sustainability and the avoidance of waste mountains. And whereas organic waste management in form of biogas plants and other forms of anaerobic digestion is gathering steam already, more refined methods to extract or convert these biological raw materials into more valuable products are still desperately needed.

In this Research Topic, we therefore aim to bring together experts and contributions from various scientific disciplines to provide a comprehensive update on the topic of biovalorization. As there is plenty of waste to be found in the litter bin, there are no limits to materials and indeed methods, which may stretch from the press cake of sunflowers, avocado stones and grape pomace to coffee grounds, banana peels and left-over stale bread rolls. So let us join forces as passionate litter rats and dig a bit deeper in the litter bin, in the hope to strike gold and to become scientifically litterate in this field, literally.