A preliminary investigation into the enhancement of cheese with grape skin powder

Abstract

Improving management and making the food industry more sustainable requires a focus on reducing waste and finding uses for by-products. In the case of grapes, by-products account for approximately 20%. It is worth noting that these by-products contain beneficial phenolic compounds that have anti-allergenic, antibacterial, anti-carcinogenic, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and cardioprotective effects. For these reasons, the food industry sector must turn its attention to them and use them as functional ingredients. In this study, grape skin powder (GSP) was added to cheese to increase its antioxidant and bioactive compounds content. The enriched cheese contained significantly higher levels of total phenolic content (TPC) and antioxidant activity compared to the control sample. Adding 2% grape skin powder resulted in an increase of 1.927 mg GAE/g DW (mg gallic acid equivalents (GAE) per gram of dry weight (DW)) of TPC in cheese formulation. The GSP-supplemented cheese also showed greater antioxidant activity than the control. This study demonstrates that grape by-products can effectively transfer beneficial compounds to cheese.