The rising consumer demand, paradigm shift in lifestyle, and changing preferences driven by enhanced understanding the connections between food and health have influenced the generation toward plant‐based foods. Underutilized fruits are recognized as the future smart foods, the reservoirs of nutrients, and bioactive compounds with wide therapeutic properties. Despite several health benefits, the fruits are neglected due to socioeconomic, agricultural, and market‐driven factors. The utilization of these fruits by processing and value addition will ensure commercial value, economic growth, and sustainable development. The review focuses on the availability of underutilized fruits according to their agroclimatic zone and bioactive compounds in them. Numerous bioactive compounds, including polyphenols, carotenoids, dietary fibers, alkaloids, polysaccharides, and phytosterols, have been studied in native, underutilized fruits with their respective potent health benefits, such as antidiabetic, anti‐inflammatory, antiobesity, analgesic, anticancer, and significantly more. Harnessing the fruits to recover the bioactive compounds focuses on targeting the potential refinement methods for enhanced stability and bioaccessibility. The potential intensification and refinement methods encompassing novel extraction methods, enrichment, and encapsulation methods have been discussed in the review. The integrated approach for sequential extraction, coextraction and simultaneous recovery of major compounds from fruit‐derived waste will enhance the circular bioeconomy approach. The functional relevance, i.e., applications of the bioactive compounds in nutraceuticals, health supplements, functional foods, or fortified foods, will lead to the commercial exploitation of the underutilized fruits, simultaneously achieving the sustainable development goals (SDGs).
Gaikwad et al. (Thu,) studied this question.