Advances in Anthocyanin Recovery and Purification From Natural Sources: Bioavailability, Mechanistic Action in the Human Body and Applications in Novel Food Development

ABSTRACT

Anthocyanins are water‐soluble natural pigments and multifunctional food ingredients that support clean‐label colour, antioxidant activity, and value‐added product development. Their industrial use is still limited by low recovery, structural instability, difficulty in purification, limited bioavailability, and processing losses. This review focuses on the recovery–purification–application pipeline by critically connecting natural sources, agro‐industrial by‐product valorisation, green extraction technologies, downstream purification and drying, stabilisation strategies, biological relevance, regulatory considerations, and novel food applications. Nonthermal and hybrid extraction approaches, such as ultrasound, microwave, enzyme‐assisted extraction, pulsed electric field, ultra‐high‐pressure processing, cold plasma, and deep eutectic solvent systems can improve anthocyanin recovery while reducing solvent use when conditions are optimised for each matrix. Downstream operations, such as membrane concentration, adsorption resin enrichment, Sephadex fractionation, countercurrent chromatography, preparative HPLC, freeze‐drying, spray‐drying, refractance window drying and encapsulation determine the purity, stability and practical usability of anthocyanin‐rich ingredients. Evidence indicates that anthocyanins and their metabolites may contribute antioxidant, antimicrobial, cardiometabolic, neuroprotective, and gut‐microbiota‐related effects, although responses remain source‐, dose‐, matrix‐, and metabolism‐dependent. Future progress requires standardised yield reporting, food‐grade solvent validation, scalable purification, regulatory clarity, bioavailability‐oriented formulation, and application‐specific shelf‐life studies.