Bioactives Screening in Overripe Fruits and Vegetables by Liquid Chromatography Coupled to Photodiode Array and Mass Spectrometry Detection

Food waste production generated by large distribution represents an emerging issue due to the large polluting impact and, at the same time, due to the enormous increase of nutrients’ need worldwide. Overripe fruits are considered as “food wastes” despite they could be yet rich sources of food ingredients and bioactives, such as carotenoids and polyphenols. In this work, a phytochemical screening of 20 selected overripe vegetables and fruits was accomplished by liquid chromatography coupled to photodiode array and mass spectrometry detection. The obtained results showed that the low-sugar-content fruits and vegetables had a higher bioactive content compared to the high-sugar fruits; in particular, tomato, wild swiss chard, green bell pepper, and lettuce leaves were the richest in bioactive phytochemicals. Green bell peppers showed the highest pigment content (875.3 mg/kg), whereas tomato, wild swiss chard, and lettuce leaves showed the highest polyphenol contents, 4541.9, 1692.4, and 712.9 mg/kg, respectively. This is the first work where a large-scale monitoring of bioactives in overripe fruits was carried out and two mixtures of fresh and dry material for animal feed are presented.