Nutraceuticals from Olives Plain Water Extraction, Identification and Assay by LC-ESI-MS/MS

Abstract

Ancient olive trees are widespread in many countries of the Mediterranean area, including the Calabria region located in southern Italy. They have adapted to environments, climates and soil conditions and represent an ecosystem heritage. The use of their drupes for manufacturing both table olive and oil is not often economically and/or commercially attractive. The future to preserve the environment and to develop new jobs in this area is the evaluation of alternative strategies to foster the establishment of small medium enterprises (SMEs) involved in the production of high value added products which might be obtained from these now endemic trees, in an environmental safe way. High-value active principles can be recovered from wastes of agri-food farms. Olive manufacturers are spread throughout the Mediterranean area, where incomes from this particular food industry represent an important fraction of the gross domestic product (GDP). A typical business of existing SMEs is represented by the commercialization of table olives; the necessary debittering process, traditionally performed by plain water is usually carried in alkaline conditions. The bitterness of freshly harvested olives is due to the presence of antioxidants and anti inflammatory active principles, which belong to the family of the most popular nutraceuticals. The development of a production line whereby olive wastewaters could be used to produce end products suitable for food, pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries might induce the establishment of new SMEs. Accordingly, waste products of plain water processing of table olives were monitored by Liquid Chromatography (LC)-Electro Spray Ionization (ESI)-tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) over a 10-day period to assess the content of the expected phenolic compounds responsible for bitterness and generally recognized for their healthy properties.