Vegetable waste streams, which are a major disposal issue in food industry, present a promising source of
compounds which may be valorised because of their favourable functional features. In this context, the
potential of five vegetable waste streams (rejected carrots, carrot steam peels, green beans cutting waste,
leek cutting waste and celeriac steam peels) as a source for the extraction of pectin with interesting
structural, and hence functional, properties was evaluated. Specifically, cell-wall components were
extracted from the waste streams as alcohol-insoluble residue and subsequently fractionated into
different (pectin) fractions based on their solubility. The pectic polysaccharides were characterised in
terms of GalA content, neutral sugar content, linearity/branching, degree of methyl-esterification (DM),
molar-mass distribution and the presence of bound protein. Pectin characterisation revealed considerable
differences between the pectic polymers present in the investigated waste streams. For example,
pectin in carrot steam peels showed a low DM, whereas the cutting waste of leek contained pectin with a
very high DM. Furthermore, the level of protein bound to pectin was generally highest in carrot-derived
waste streams. Depending on the intended pectin functionality, a deliberate choice for one of these
vegetable waste streams as a source for pectin extraction can be made.