In the last years, hop culture has spread throughout Italy, and the vegetative biomass disposal, after harvesting of cones, used for beer production, became a serious problem for hop growers. Hop plant contains in all parts, cones, shoots, leaves and roots, bioactive compounds, with proven and important antiviral, antibacterial and antioxidant properties. Thanking to these properties, bioactive compounds extracted from hop vegetative biomass can be used for food storage and/or as a food supplement and/or as a constituent of cosmetic formulations or in the functionalization of innovative packaging. Given these premises, from a circular economy perspective, the main idea of the project is to convert a waste in a resource, making, at the same time, hop cultivation more sustainable.
The commercial product to be obtained, following a preliminary study, is a spray formulation containing dilutions of the hop waste bioactive extracts, with promising and proven antioxidant, antimicrobial and nutritional properties. The spray would have important and innovative applications as a natural preservative to extend the shelf-life of food products (green additive or functional ingredient), improving the quality and healthiness of the product. Furthermore, given its technical characteristics, this extract may be used as a nutraceutical component for food supplements and/or as an ingredient for cosmetic products and/or in the functionalization of active packaging for food. The final product will therefore be sustainable for the environment and safe for the consumer because of natural origin. Finally, the added value of the technological proposal is the resolution of the 'hop vegetative biomass disposal' problem, that will be converted into a new resource for the producers.