Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2020 May 21;9(5):665.
doi: 10.3390/foods9050665.

A Review of Coffee By-Products Including Leaf, Flower, Cherry, Husk, Silver Skin, and Spent Grounds as Novel Foods within the European Union

Tizian Klingel  1 , Jonathan I Kremer  1 , Vera Gottstein  1 , Tabata Rajcic de Rezende  1 , Steffen Schwarz  2 , Dirk W Lachenmeier  1
Affiliations
Review

A Review of Coffee By-Products Including Leaf, Flower, Cherry, Husk, Silver Skin, and Spent Grounds as Novel Foods within the European Union

Tizian Klingel et al. Foods. .

Abstract

The coffee plant Coffea spp. offers much more than the well-known drink made from the roasted coffee bean. During its cultivation and production, a wide variety of by-products are accrued, most of which are currently unused, thermally recycled, or used as animal feed. The aim of this review is to provide an overview of novel coffee products in the food sector and their current legal classification in the European Union (EU). For this purpose, we have reviewed the literature on the composition and safety of coffee flowers, leaves, pulp, husk, parchment, green coffee, silver skin, and spent coffee grounds. Some of these products have a history of consumption in Europe (green coffee), while others have already been used as traditional food in non-EU-member countries (coffee leaves, notification currently pending), or an application for authorization as novel food has already been submitted (husks, flour from spent coffee grounds). For the other products, toxicity and/or safety data appear to be lacking, necessitating further studies to fulfill the requirements of novel food applications.

Keywords: cascara; coffee by-products; coffee flower; coffee leaves; coffee pulp; coffee silver skin; green coffee; husk; novel food; spent coffee grounds.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
European Union (EU) Novel Food Catalogue entry for Coffea (accessed on 31 March 2020) [10].
Figure 2
Figure 2
Cross section of a coffee cherry with its different layers.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Coffee production-related by-products.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Lachenmeier D.W., Teipel J., Scharinger A., Kuballa T., Walch S.G., Grosch F., Bunzel M., Okaru A.O., Schwarz S. Fully automated identification of coffee species and simultaneous quantification of furfuryl alcohol using NMR spectroscopy. J. AOAC Int. 2020;103:306–314. doi: 10.1093/jaocint/qsz020. - DOI - PubMed
    1. International Coffee Organization Trade Statistics Tables—Production. [(accessed on 7 April 2020)]; Available online: http://www.ico.org/prices/po-production.pdf.
    1. Esquivel P., Jiménez V.M. Functional properties of coffee and coffee by-products. Food Res. Int. 2012;46:488–495. doi: 10.1016/j.foodres.2011.05.028. - DOI
    1. De Melo Pereira G.V., de Carvalho Neto D.P., Magalhães Júnior A.I., do Prado F.G., Pagnoncelli M.G.B., Karp S.G., Soccol C.R. Chemical composition and health properties of coffee and coffee by-products. Adv. Food Nutr. Res. 2020;91:65–96. doi: 10.1016/bs.afnr.2019.10.002. - DOI - PubMed
    1. European Union European Union Regulation (EU) 2015/2283 of the European parliament and of the council of 25 November 2015 on novel foods, amending Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council and repealing Regulation (EC) No 258/97 of the European Parliament and of the Council and Commission Regulation (EC) No 1852/2001. Off. J. Eur. Union. 2015;L327:1–22.

LinkOut - more resources