Pigments

Synthetic pigments utilized in food and other allied industries are basically petrochemical-originated chemical dyes. Due to their chemical or petro-originated nature, they impose adverse impacts on human and environment health that drive to accumulate the interest of researchers toward the development of novel, natural, safe, non-toxic, and eco-friendly pigments. This further drives to seek some renewable resources which are not only economical cheaper but also meeting the expectations, to produce the natural pigments. In this regard, the food waste and by-products obtained from the food-processing industries presume immense importance to extract natural pigments as they are an enriched source of natural pigments which can be extracted by employing green extraction technologies or by utilizing the biotechnologically advanced strategies. This chapter entails the various types of natural pigments obtained from food wastes, green extraction technologies, microbial pigments utilizing food wastes, challenges to extraction, and incorporation of the natural pigments in food formulation, stability aspects, and their future prospects. Moreover, the chapter focused on new developments, innovations, and challenges in the extraction of natural pigments directly by using innovative technologies as well as by using microorganisms to exploit their functional potential.