Researchers in Turkey have proposed a brand new sustainable answer for vineyard waste.
In a brand new examine revealed in SCI’s Journal of the Science of Meals and Agriculture they’ve demonstrated how one of the important by-products from the winemaking trade can be utilized in gelatine-based sweets, as a low-cost pure colouring agent with added well being advantages.
Wine lees are the residue left over after fermentation within the winemaking course of, primarily consisting of lifeless yeast cells. Every year as much as 2.5 million tons of lees are produced globally. Whereas they’ll grow to be a pollutant if launched straight into the setting, they’ve properties that may improve the dietary and useful properties of assorted merchandise together with yoghurt, ice cream and even burgers.
The confectionery trade was valued at $187 billion in 2022 and is anticipated to develop. Nonetheless, till now, using wine lees in gelatine-based confectionery has not been reported. On this examine, the crew in contrast the properties of jellies colored with wine lees and a broadly used industrial colourant. They demonstrated that wine lees improved the feel of the jellies while additionally including a fascinating flavour profile.
Dr Gülce Bedis Kaynarca, Assistant Professor at Kırklareli College, Turkey, and corresponding creator of the examine, defined the motivation behind their analysis:
‘Confectionery industries typically use meals colourants, significantly to boost the attraction of confectionery. Nonetheless, the artificial meals colourants typically used lack fragrant properties and useful parts and, regardless of their stability, might comprise poisonous parts.
‘Wine lees, the second largest by-product of the winemaking trade, are wealthy in anthocyanins, that are useful for our well being. This prompted us to analyze the potential for wine lees – an industrial waste – for use as a pure color agent and a bioactive part in jelly-type tender confectionery.’
Meals colourants are a rising market, predicted to succeed in $4.77 billion by 2026. Kaynarca notes that customers are more and more searching for merchandise with clear labels and pure plant parts, making wine lees a sexy choice. As well as, wine lees are cheaper than the industrial options.
‘Whereas wine lees vary in worth per kilogram in October 2023 from $1.36–$3, meals dyes have a a lot wider worth vary, starting at $5 and going up. In distinction to different colouring brokers, the utilisation of wine lees as a colouring agent not solely ends in a value discount for the merchandise but in addition confers a complete financial profit by imparting useful properties to them,’ defined Kaynarca.
She famous that repurposing wine lees may additionally minimize waste disposal prices for wineries, in addition to ‘contributing to the discount of water air pollution and greenhouse fuel emissions by way of waste administration.’
Kaynarca hopes the analysis will open doorways to different potential purposes for wine lees. ‘Resulting from their excessive phenolic content material and antioxidant exercise, wine lees could also be integrated into the formulation of dietary dietary supplements and healthful snack meals with potential cardioprotective and anti-cancer properties,’ she mentioned.
