Waste Valorisation

6Recovery of Nutrients and Transformations of Municipal/Domestic Food Waste

Divyani Panwar¹, Parmjit S. Panesar¹, Gisha Singla², Meena Krishania², and Avinash Thakur³

¹Food Biotechnology Research Laboratory, Department of Food Engineering and Technology, Sant Longowal Institute of Engineering and Technology, Longowal ‐ 148 106, Punjab, India

²Center of Innovative and Applied Bioprocessing, Sector‐81, S.A.S Nagar, Mohali, Punjab 140306, India

³Department of Chemical Engineering, Sant Longowal Institute of Engineering and Technology, Longowal ‐ 148 106, Punjab, India

6.1 Introduction

Continual increase in human population (1.1% per year) has led to an increased demand for packaged and processed foods. This increase in demand for food production has resulted in an intensive increase in a variety of agriculture practices, transportation, and storage. Various modern technologies have also been developed which have resulted in an intensification of food production. However, this technological advancement in the field of food processing generates a surplus volume of food byproducts and wastes. Food processing industries such as the fruits and vegetable industry, beverage industry, dairy industry, bakery industry, sugar industry, and meat industry are involved in the production of processed food commodities, and thereby generate various types of food wastes (Joshi and Sharma 2011).

Waste is defined as any substance or material which is unwanted, undesirable, and is of no use. This ...