Besides the variety of colours and flavours, microgreens show interesting nutritional properties, mainly regarding their contents of mineral nutrients and bioactive compounds. To date, the literature has prevalently focused on the individual nutritional features of microgreens usually belonging to Brassicaceae. The present study reports an articulated nutritional profile of six genotypes of microgreens, belonging to three species and two families: chicory (Cichorium intybus L., Puglia's local variety ‘Molfetta’, CM, and cultivar ‘Italico a costa rossa’, CR) and lettuce (Lactuca sativa L. Group crispa, cultivar ‘Bionda da taglio’, LB, and ‘Trocadero’, LT), from Asteraceae; and broccoli (Brassica oleracea L. Group italica Plenk, Puglia's local variety ‘Mugnuli’, BM, and cultivar ‘Natalino’, BN) from Brassicaceae. All the microgreens, except LB, can be considered good sources of Ca, whilst LT and CM also showed considerable amounts of K. As regards bioactive compounds, Brassica microgreens were the richest in phenolic antioxidants. The microgreens also presented higher amounts of α-tocopherol and carotenoids compared to mature vegetables. In particular, broccoli microgreens and LB showed the highest amounts of vitamin E, while Asteraceae microgreens presented the highest levels of carotenoids. Due to their delicate tissues, fresh cut microgreens showed a shelf life not exceeding ten days at 5 °C. The results obtained highlight the possibility to exploit genetic biodiversity in order to obtain tailored microgreens with the desired nutritional profiles, with particular regard to mineral nutrients and bioactive compounds. Appropriate pre- and post-harvest strategies should be developed, so as to allow microgreens to retain as long as possible their nutritional value.

The winemaking sector is one of the most productive worldwide, and thus it also generates large amounts of by-products with high environmental impacts. Furthermore, global market trends and government regulations promote industrial alternatives based on sustainable production processes. As a result, several studies have focused their attention on the reuse of grape by-products in the agro-food chain. Vine shoots, grape stalks, and wine lees, although produced to a lesser extent than grape pomace, have increasingly been receiving attention for their applications in the food sector, since they are a good source of functional and bioactive compounds. In this framework, our review highlights the promising results obtained by exploiting the antioxidant and/or antimicrobial activity of vine shoots, grape stalks, and wine lees or their extracts to replace the most common oenological additives and to assay the activity against food pathogens. Further, innovative functional foods and sustainable food packaging have been formulated by taking advantage of polyphenols and fiber, as well as plant bio-stimulants, in order to obtain grapes and wines with high quality characteristics. Overall, these by-products showed the potential to be recycled into the food chain as functional additives for different products and applications, supporting the sustainability of the winemaking sector.