Editorial to the Special Issue “Plant Extracts: From Extract Technology to Health Benefits”

The valorization of food industry waste is essential to the sustainable development of the agro-food industry, starting from the extraction of plant special metabolites, a challenge that still exists today [1]. In this context, the Special Issue, entitled “Plant Extracts: From Extract Technology to Health Benefits”, contains four research papers and two reviews, covering the latest advances in the valorization of food by-products, from the extraction process to the validation of their functional activity in experimental models. Traditional and non-traditional extraction methods have been developed over the years. An ever-increasing number of extraction methods referred to as “green extraction” are currently being utilized in an effort to minimize the use of organic solvents and replace them with more eco- and environmentally friendly ones [2]. Green chemistry-based extraction techniques offer several advantages over conventional methods, including reduced extraction time, solvent consumption, etc., and fit with eco-extraction practices [3]. A novel technique, as Microwave Hydrodiffusion and Gravity (MHG) was applied by Crescente et al. (contribution 1) to recover high-value components from the Grape Pomace (GP) of a Vitis vinifera cultivar named “Aglianico”