Waste not, want not

The Institute of Food Research (IFR) is hoping to patent new methods of extracting valuable ingredients from food waste.

IFR senior scientist Keith Waldron co-ordinates the European Commission's REPRO project, which explores ways of extracting phytochemicals, nutrients and micronutrients from vegetable trimmings and brewers' spent grain.

He said: "Our research is being evaluated for patenting and we're hopeful it will be commercialised in the next two years."

Waldron said that more than 3.4Mt of spent grain from brewing and more than 1Mt of trimmings from vegetable processing were produced across the EU every year.

"The key to making money from it is finding uses for the whole by-product, which could mean creating lower-value components for things like thickeners as well as higher-value bioactive compounds for use in nutraceutical products," he said.

Waldron cited waste onion peelings, which could not only be used to create savoury food flavourings, but could also be used as fibres in yoghurts and in other dairy-based products, as well as being used as low-calorie, zero-fat and non-starch instant thickening agents.

A key part of the research, said Waldron, had been to focus on finding ways of stabilising the waste products to prevent microbial deterioration.