From Winery Waste to Functional Asset: Why Grape Pomace Is Emerging as a High-Value Food Ingredient
- PYD
- 2 hours ago
- 3 min read
In 2025, circular economy innovation in food is shifting from concept to application, with research from China highlighting grape pomace as a rare convergence point between sustainability, functionality, and formulation performance. Once treated as low-value waste, grape skins, seeds, and stems left from winemaking are increasingly recognised as multi-functional inputs capable of improving nutrition, shelf life, texture, and visual appeal across food categories.
Insights & Strategic Moves
Circular economics meets nutritional density.
Chinese researchers reporting in Food Chemistry X found that upcycled grape pomace offers a compelling combination of environmental and health benefits. Rich in antioxidants, dietary fibre, phenolic compounds, and bioactive substances, grape pomace can be redirected from waste streams into value-added food, supplement, cosmetic, and pharmaceutical applications—reducing pollution while extending ingredient utility.
A concentration of functional compounds in a single by-product.
Grape pomace contains polyphenols, flavonoids, proanthocyanidins, natural pigments, and polyunsaturated fatty acids, alongside minerals such as potassium, iron, and zinc. Red grape skins are particularly fibre-dense, containing 51–56% fibre by weight, compared with 17–28% in white grape skins. These fibres not only support digestion but also bind with phenolic compounds to form “antioxidant dietary fibre,” enhancing free-radical scavenging activity and amplifying functional benefits linked to cardiovascular and metabolic health.
Natural colour, structure, and preservation in one ingredient.
Beyond nutrition, grape pomace provides anthocyanins—natural red, purple, and blue pigments widely used as food colourants—and pectin, a gelling, emulsifying, and stabilising agent. Pectin’s strong film-forming properties enable edible coatings that extend shelf life, while grape seed oil contributes vitamin E, unsaturated fatty acids, and antioxidant activity. Together, these attributes position grape pomace as a multi-role natural additive at a time when demand for clean-label alternatives to synthetic ingredients is accelerating.
Data-backed functionality across food systems.
The research outlines precise, application-ready inclusion levels. In pork burgers, a 0.06% w/w addition (0.06g per 100g) improved colour stability and reduced lipid oxidation. For beef burgers, 0.5–2% w/w enhanced fibre content and served as a natural alternative to butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT), a commonly used synthetic antioxidant. In beverages, 2–10% w/w inclusion in orange and apple juices improved fibre levels and antifungal activity. Dairy applications also show promise: adding 1% w/w free or microencapsulated grape pomace to yoghurt increased antioxidant activity and gel strength.
From functional foods to supplements.
Commercial applications are already emerging, with grape pomace used in supplements targeting cardiovascular health, antioxidant support, and general wellness. The breadth of functionality—nutritional, sensory, and preservative—suggests scalability across both mass and premium food segments, particularly as brands seek ingredients that deliver multiple benefits without label complexity.
The commercialisation bottleneck.
Despite technical promise, researchers caution that large-scale adoption remains constrained. Social acceptance of upcycled ingredients is still limited, while the logistics of collecting, transporting, and preserving fresh pomace are costly. Preservation is essential to prevent decomposition, but adds economic friction. Researchers argue that localised processing facilities near winemaking regions would materially reduce costs, though technical challenges persist around extraction efficiency, residue management, and full conversion into high-value outputs.
Policy, price, and perception as adoption levers.
The study underscores that scaling grape pomace utilisation requires coordinated action across industry, consumers, and policymakers. Processing costs, final product pricing, and consumer willingness to purchase upcycled foods will ultimately determine viability. In the near term, the recommendation is pragmatic: focus on cleaner production, waste reduction, and by-product recovery, while building towards more advanced functional food applications over time.
Grape pomace illustrates the next phase of circular food innovation—where waste is not merely reused, but re-engineered into performance ingredients with measurable functional outcomes. As pressure mounts for natural additives and sustainable sourcing, such by-products may shift from peripheral curiosity to core formulation strategy.