Side-streams of wine industry: insights and learned lessons for making real the vision of reliable pharmacological therapeutics

Abstract

From the beginning of the research related to valorization of winemaking industry by-products, the objective was the identification of alternative natural and safer sources of biofunctional and technofunctional ingredients. The aim was to provide evidence for a growing interest in society related to the impact of food by-products in terms of sustainability, summed up to the positive health benefits associated to their valuable components. The opportunity opened in this circular economy context, allowed the presentation on novel options for this kind of by-products, but the transference success of these applications to the industry has not been as high as estimated. This chapter is aimed to present the main currently available evidence for the valorization of bioactive phytochemicals obtained from wine industry by-products in the pharmacological field. A critical view of constraints, probably responsible of the low real profit and assimilation of these ingredients/products by the industry are also addressed.