From waste to wealth: Innovating with food by-products

Food by-products are a major, underutilised reservoir of nutrients and bioactive compounds, and inefficient management increases environmental burdens while forfeiting economic value; therefore, this review aims to synthesise recent advances across the valorisation pipeline by mapping key industrial side streams to compatible conversion technologies within integrated biorefinery concepts. Recent studies indicate that green extraction, enzymatic hydrolysis, and biotechnological transformations can deliver markedly higher recoveries than conventional solvent-based routes, with reported yield improvements of 16–112 % depending on feedstock–process pairing, while broader adoption is supported by a rapidly expanding valorisation market. Furthermore, the global market for food waste valorisation is projected to grow significantly, reaching an estimated USD 132.2 billion by 2034. Life cycle assessment (LCA) and techno-economic analysis (TEA) are consolidated as decision frameworks for selecting scalable pathways and aligning process outcomes with consumer acceptance. Artificial intelligence–enabled process analytical technology is highlighted for robust, real-time monitoring and optimisation that can outperform static control strategies under variable inputs. New aspects and challenges discussed include how feedstock compositional variability destabilises yields and product quality, how stabilisation steps can dominate energy and environmental burdens, and how food-grade translation is constrained by contaminant risks, regulatory evidence requirements, limited real-time data infrastructure, and downstream purification bottlenecks such as membrane fouling and permeability–selectivity trade-offs that weaken scale-up and cross-study LCA/TEA comparability. Overall, this review provides a streamlined blueprint for converting biological waste into reliable, market-ready products that advance circular bioeconomy objectives.