Abstract
Food industry produces considerable amounts of by-products that represent a severe problem from both economic and pollution points of view. The bioactive compounds still present in food by-products offer the possibility to re-use them to develop added value products. In the current work some by-products were incorporated into curd during production of Primosale cheese. Specifically, two concentrations (i.e., 50 and 100 g Kg(-1)) of flours from different by-products (i.e., red and white wine grape pomace; tomato peel, broccoli and artichokes by-products), as source of dietary fibres and bioactive compounds were tested. The swelling and water retention capacity of flours, in addition to physicochemical characteristics of cheese (cheese weight loss, dry substance in the whey, cheese moisture content and pH), bioactive compounds (total phenolic compounds, total flavonoids and antioxidant activity) and sensory profile were evaluated. Results highlighted that addition of by-products to Primosale cheese improved the nutritional properties and some sensory attributes such as friability and adhesiveness. Among the tested by-products, the most attractive result was obtained for Primosale cheese with artichoke by-products.