Solutions for management of unavoidable horticultural waste to improve environmental and economic sustainability of the horticulture sector

The Background

The fruit and vegetable sector generates large volumes of unavoidable crop waste, also known as by-products. These by-products include crop grade-outs, peels, pomace, vines, or used growing media.

It is estimated that 70% of crop waste occurs before reaching distribution, from primary production and processing.

Discarding these by-products or grade-outs incurs significant costs to producers and processors and has negative environmental impacts such as increasing GHG emissions from landfilling plant waste.

For large crop production or processing operations, annual landfilling costs can amount to several hundred thousand dollars annually.

This research aims to develop new opportunities for repurposing fruit and vegetable production and processing by-products to improve the environmental and financial profile of horticultural operations.

Develop and/or validate new technologies to convert fruit and vegetable production by-products into new products, such as food ingredients, growing media, soil amendments, or biostimulants.
Assist horticultural businesses through identifying opportunities to divert their by-products.
Evaluate identified waste diversion opportunities for potential financial and environmental impact to inform business decisions.
Create new connections across the agri-business supply chain to facilitate bringing new “upcycled” products to the market, produced from repurposed by-products.