Interview D. Lossifidis and G.A. van den Berg - Materials recovered from leftover fruit juice could make saving water pay

The EU-funded project called Ultimate is helping transform fruit juice leftovers into a range of sustainable materials – and it’s creating a stronger business case for the circular economy of water in the agri-food sector.
In 2019, the EU produced around 7 million tonnes of fruit for juice, but it turns out much more could be squeezed out of each year’s harvest. “A lot goes to waste when making juice,” said Dimitri Iossifidis, founder of Greener than Green technologies, a sustainable innovation company. “But it’s only waste when you throw something away – until then it’s a resource.” The ‘waste’ comes after washing and processing fruit. This generates a large volume of dirty water, but the leftover liquid contains a range of materials that can be recovered for pharmaceutical applications. There is also unused biomass, like fruit skin and seeds, which can be used as animal feed or fertiliser.”

(Citation: Jung, K. – Interview D. Lossifidis and G.A. van den Berg – Materials recovered from leftover fruit juice could make saving water pay – www.cordis.europa.eu (2021)4 March)