Table Olive Powder: A new ingredient from food industry discards

This study aimed to obtain olive powder from table olive industry discards to use it as a valuable ingredient for developing new products or for replacing commercial additives. The drying process was conducted by convective drying (50 °C and 70 °C) and freeze-drying. The raw material came from Spanish-style green pitted olives and anchovy-stuffed olives. Table olive powders were characterised by their proximate composition, physico-chemical characteristics, antioxidant properties and lipid oxidation. The drying process did not affect the final product's nutritional value, which was determined mainly by the employed raw material, but high temperatures strongly impacted colour and caused a reduction in the bioactive compounds between 60 and 70 %. The freeze-dried table olive powder had the highest phenolic content at over 2500 mg GAE/kg and antioxidant properties, which reduce product lipid oxidation below 2 mg MDA/kg. This work expounds the best drying process to obtain a novel high-quality ingredient from table olive discards. • A new food ingredient obtained from table olive discards. • Oven and freeze-drying are efficient in producing table olive powder. • Freeze-drying keeps antioxidant properties and lipid oxidation in table olive powder. • The obtained table olive powder is a good source of fibre and natural antioxidants.