摘要
A comprehensive use of residues from the agrofood industry requires development of a number of steps聽-聽discussed in this article taking as a model the olive tree聽-聽olive oil binomial聽-聽consisting of: (i) extraction, identification and quantitation of valuable products (with isolation of individual compounds, if required); (ii) assessment of beneficial effects (which could be made mainly through metabolomics); (iii) improvement of cultivation varieties (through cross-breeding or other agricultural resources); (iv) commercialization as nutraceuticals, food supplements, pharmaceuticals or even as antibacterial and antifoam agents in water treatment plants; (v) use of the final residues to produce compost, foodstuffs, biogas or heat (after checking the characteristics of these residues which can be very different from those of the original residue). This working scheme may be applied to any other system to break the traditional one cultivation-one commercial product scheme.