Organizations and in particularly food production systems can no longer ignore the need to act in a sustainable manner. Sustainability provides tangible benefits to the engaged organizations, e.g. reduction of costs and risks by being proactive in environmental issues. By balancing the social and environmental elements of sustainability, long-term profitability could be achieved.

Recovery is a way of utilizing food wastes by developing new products with a market value. Utilizing food wastes could reduce food waste levels and create new opportunities and benefits for everyone related to a food production system.

Reducing food waste through the recovery of its valuable components is an important way of increasing the sustainability of the food production systems.

For instance, potato peels and processing wastewater could be used for the extraction of phenols and thus being transformed to a new material with an economic value. Cheese processing whey could be used to recover sweeteners, prior their implementation in nutritional supplements. Through the recovery of those valuable materials huge energy savings are achieved.