Valorising Whey: From Environmental Burden to Bio-Based Production of Value-Added Compounds and Food Ingredients

Abstract

Cheese manufacturing generates large volumes of whey with high biochemical and chemical oxygen demand, historically treated as waste. Yet, whey is rich in lactose, proteins, and minerals that can be fractionated and upgraded into foods and bio-based products. During cheese production, 80% to 90% of the total volume is discarded as whey, which can cause severe pollution. However, milk by-products can be a natural source of high-value-added compounds and a cost-effective substrate for microbial growth and metabolites production. The current review focuses on cheese whey as a key milk by-product, highlighting its generation and composition, the challenges associated with its production, methods for fractionating whey to recover bioactive compounds, its applications in functional food developm