Waking Up from Four Decades' Long Dream of Valorizing Agro-Food Byproducts: Toward Practical Applications of the Gained Knowledge

The late 1970s was the onset of literature about the first research outputs on alternatives to create added-value to agro-food byproducts focused on the reduction of the dependency on raw materials and, simultaneously, helping to reduce the environmental impacts of the agricultural activities. This trend, increased over the years and during the past decade, has been boosted by the growing concern of the socio-economic impact of wastes from agro-food activities, however, with little success of the proposed applications. Throughout four decades an array of studies have emerged, aimed to gain evidence on the relevance of innovation in the agro-food industry, as well as to overcome this situation. To our knowledge, only a few cases, summarized in the present perspective, represent the main alternatives currently available for the valorization of agro-food byproducts, with indications of some constraints that need to be addressed, in the coming years, to obtain a real profit from these products.