Upcycling fruit and vegetable peels into high-value functional food products: Physicochemical characterization, nutritional profiling, and consumer acceptability of novel culinary and nutraceutical ingredients

Abstract

Food waste generated from fruit and vegetable processing represents a critical yet underutilized resource within global food supply chains, particularly in developing economies where post-harvest losses compound nutritional insecurity and environmental degradation. In the Philippines, agri-food processing by-products—including peels, seeds, and fibrous husks—constitute a substantial fraction of institutional and municipal waste streams that currently receive minimal valorization. This study investigated the systematic upcycling of four locally abundant by-products into high-value functional food ingredients through an integrated experimental framework encompassing physicochemical characterization, proximate nutritional analysis, sensory evaluation, consumer behavioral modeling, and economic feasibility assessment.

Four novel products were developed and evaluated: banana peel infusion tea (Musa acuminata cv. Lakatan), breadnut seed flour (Artocarpus camansi), arrowroot-cassava fortified pandesal (Maranta arundinacea/Manihot esculenta), and calcium-enriched pasta formulated with green-lipped mussel shell powder (Perna canaliculus). Physicochemical parameters—including total phenolic content (TPC), 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical scavenging activity, water activity (aw), and proximate composition—were quantified following standardized AOAC International (2019) and Folin-Ciocalteu protocols. Sensory acceptability was evaluated using a nine-point Hedonic Scale administered to n = 100 purposively sampled Bachelor of Science in Hospitality Management (BSHM) students at St. Dominic College of Asia (SDCA). Structural equation modeling (SEM) was employed to assess the psychosocial determinants of consumer adoption intention, while a cost-benefit analysis (CBA) provided economic feasibility evidence.

Results demonstrated that all four products achieved mean overall acceptability scores ranging from 7.9 to 8.5 on the nine-point Hedonic Scale, with statistically significant inter-product differences confirmed by one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) with Tukey’s post-hoc comparison (p < 0.001). Banana peel tea exhibited the highest total phenolic content (TPC = 18.4 ± 1.2 mg gallic acid equivalents [GAE]/g dw) and DPPH scavenging activity (72.3 ± 2.1%), while mussel shell pasta achieved a calcium content of 312 ± 18 mg/100 g—representing approximately 31% of the recommended daily intake. The SEM revealed that environmental sustainability attitudes significantly predicted purchase intention (β = 0.71, p < 0.001; R² = 0.68), with food neophobia as the primary inhibiting construct (β = −0.43, p < 0.001). Production cost analysis indicated reductions of 38–44% relative to conventional ingredient equivalents, with gross margins ranging from 31.4% to 47.2%. These findings provide an empirically grounded, multi-dimensional framework for institutionalizing food waste upcycling within academic food service contexts and establish a scalable model applicable to Philippine agro-industrial food systems.