Fruit seeds as sources of bioactive compounds: Sustainable production of high value-added ingredients from by-products within circular economy

The circular economy is an umbrella concept that applies different mechanisms aiming tominimize waste generation, thus decoupling economic growth from natural resources. Each year,an estimated one-third of all food produced is wasted; this is equivalent to 1.3 billion tons of food,which is worth around US$1 trillion or even $2.6 trillion when social and economic costs areincluded. In the fruit and vegetable sector, 45% of the total produced amount is lost in theproduction (post-harvest, processing, and distribution) and consumption chains. Therefore, it isnecessary to find new technological and environmentally friendly solutions to utilize fruit wastesas new raw materials to develop and scale up the production of high value-added products andingredients. Considering that the production and consumption of fruits has increased in the lastyears and following the need to find the sustainable use of different fruit side streams, this workaimed to describe the chemical composition and bioactivity of different fruit seeds consumedworldwide. A comprehensive focus is given on the extraction techniques of water-soluble andlipophilic compounds and in vitro/in vivo functionalities, and the link between chemical compositionand observed activity is holistically explained.