Pineapple is a tropical fruit consumed fresh or processed into various food products. However, the peel
and crown of this fruit are not industrially exploited, thus generating tons of by-products that represent an
economic and environmental concern. In order to promote the upcycling of these by-products, this
work aimed to characterize the phenolic profile of its hydroethanolic extracts obtained from pineapple
peel and crown leaves and to evaluate their in vitro bioactivity. The HPLC-DAD-ESI/MS analysis allowed
the identification of 25 phenolic compounds, including phenolic acids and flavonoids. The antioxidant,
cytotoxic, and antimicrobial activity assays highlighted the peel extract as the most promising and, therefore,
it was incorporated into a traditional Portuguese pastry cake as a functional ingredient. The nutritional
parameters of the developed food were not affected by the incorporation of the extract, but it promoted
the antioxidant activity during its shelf-life. Overall, pineapple peel and crown appeared as promising
by-products to be exploited by the food industry, which can be achieved through a circular economy
approach.
The authors are grateful to the Foundation for Science and
Technology (FCT, Portugal) for financial support by national
funds FCT/MCTES to CIMO (UIDB/00690/2020). R. C. Calhelha
and L. Barros acknowledge the national funding by FCT, P. I.,
through the institutional scientific employment program-contract,
and J. Pinela and M. Carocho through the individual
scientific employment program-contract (CEECIND/01011/2018 and CEECIND/00831/2018, respectively). C. Caleja is
thankful for her contract through the project Healthy-
PETFOOD (POCI-01-0247-FEDER-047073). Conducted under
the project “BIOMA – Bioeconomy integrated solutions for the
mobilization of the Agro-food market” (POCI-01-0247-
FEDER-046112), by “BIOMA” Consortium, and financed by
European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), through the
Incentive System to Research and Technological development,
within the Portugal2020 Competitiveness and
Internationalization Operational Program. This work has been
supported by the Ministry of Education, Science and
Technological Development of Republic of Serbia (451-03-9/
2021-14/200007).
