# Application of Natural Antioxidants from Fruits Waste for Improving Egg Quality Characteristics
## 8 Conclusions, Challenges, and Future Directions  
The sustainable use of fruit waste in laying hens' feed offers multiple dietary advantages. By repurposing fruits' waste as natural antioxidant sources for poultry, the food and agricultural industries can recycle, reduce, and reuse fruits' waste while decreasing reliance on synthetic additives, lowering their environmental impact, and promoting a circular economic system. As international challenges associated with food waste and sustainability keep growing, using fruit waste in laying hens' diets represents a valuable, eco-friendly solution for both the feed industry and agricultural sectors. Antioxidants modulate key metabolic processes in laying hens, protecting against oxidative stress and improving nutrient absorption, and are deposited within the egg yolk, wherein they make contributions to improved yolk coloration, flavor, and nutrient composition and extended shelf life. The age of the bird and the genetic hybrid can impact these mechanisms, with younger hens and hybrids demonstrating an extra efficient deposition of antioxidants. However, several aspects should be considered when using fruits' waste in designing feeding strategies for laying hens:  
* The nutrient composition of fruit waste can vary significantly depending on the type of fruit, which makes it difficult to maintain a balanced diet consistently, potentially leading to nutritional imbalances if not designed adequately. It requires extensive nutritional profiling of different types of fruit waste to understand their composition and variability, which will enable the development of targeted diet formulations that make the most of each type of waste without compromising nutrient balance. * New feed formulations could be developed to balance fruit waste with complementary nutrients, amino acids, and minerals. This would help create well-rounded diets that incorporate fruit waste without causing nutrient deficiencies or imbalances. * The high crude fiber content in some fruit waste can hinder nutrient absorption in laying hens, interfering with essential nutrients' digestibility, leading to poor production. Also, the bioavailability of essential minerals for poultry (calcium, magnesium, phosphorus) can be affected by the presence of compounds like phytates or oxalates in high amounts. Incorporating specific enzymes or additives in compound feeds that contain fruit waste could help break down fibers, reduce anti-nutritional factors, and improve the digestibility of nutrients. * Strong flavors in some fruit waste could have an impact on feed palatability, which could reduce feed intake, with detrimental impacts on productivity and layers' health. * Some fruit wastes may contain anti-nutritional factors or natural toxins that can be harmful to laying hens if ingested in large amounts. Also, if stored improperly, spoilage and molds produce mycotoxins that are toxic to poultry, leading to health issues, detrimental production performances, and even mortality of the animals. Developing methods to process and preserve fruit waste that reduce spoilage risks, making fruit waste more stable, safe, and palatable, allowing for consistent use without the risk of mycotoxin formation is vital. * More research is necessary to understand the long-term effects of fruit waste on laying hens' health and production performance and egg quality and shelf life. Combining fruit waste with other agricultural by-products (seeds, peels, oils) could be more balanced for laying hens' nutrition while creating more sustainable feeding solutions, with the potential of a concomitant improvement in eggs' quality traits. Conceptualization, P.A.V. ; methodology, P.A.V. and A.E.U. ; investigation, P.A.V. ; graphics, P.A.V. ; writing--original draft preparation, P.A.V. and A.E.U. ; writing--review and editing, P.A.V. and A.E.U. ; visualization, P.A.V. and A.E.U. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript. Funding: This research received no external funding.