Potential of residues from the Mediterranean agriculture and agrifood industry

•Residues from Mediterranean agriculture had not received much attention for exploitation so far.•Methods for extraction of valuable products have been developed and exposed here.•Interesting compounds for the food and nutraceutical fields have been found.

The most abundant agrifood residues in the Mediterranean basin derive from the two traditional crops: olive trees and vineyards. They are vine shoots and leaves (both fresh and senescent leaves) lees, grape skins, seeds and stalk, on the one hand; olive tree leaves and olive pomace, on the other. The potential of these residues as a powerful source of well known phenols with antioxidant properties has been proved; nevertheless, there are a number of other unknown phenols together with other families of very valuable compounds that should be studied. This article constitutes a call of attention on this unexploited wealth.