MINI-REVIEW Essential oils and distilled straws of lavender and lavandin: a review of current use and potential application in white biotechnology Laurence Lesage-Meessen & Marine Bou & Jean-Claude Sigoillot & Craig B. Faulds & Anne Lomascolo Received: 12 December 2014 /Revised: 25 February 2015 /Accepted: 25 February 2015 # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2015 Abstract The Lavandula genus, which includes lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) and lavandin (L. angustifolia × Lavandula latifolia), is cultivated worldwide for its essential oils, which find applications in perfumes, cosmetics, food processing and, more recently, in aromatherapy products. The chemical composition of lavender and lavandin essential oils, usually produced by steam distillation from the flowering stems, is characterized by the presence of terpenes (e.g. linal- ool and linalyl acetate) and terpenoids (e.g. 1,8-cineole), which are mainly responsible for their characteristic flavour and their biological and therapeutic properties. Lavender and lavandin distilled straws, the by-products of oil extraction, were traditionally used for soil replenishment or converted to a fuel source. They are mineral- and carbon-rich plant res- idues and, therefore, a cheap, readily available source of valu- able substances of industrial interest, especially aroma and antioxidants (e.g. terpenoids, lactones and phenolic com- pounds including coumarin, herniarin, α -bisabolol, rosmarinic and chlorogenic acids). Accordingly, recent studies have emphasized the possible uses of lavender and lavandin straws in fermentative or enzymatic processes involving var- ious microorganisms, especially filamentous fungi, for the production of antimicrobials, antioxidants and other bioproducts with pharmaceutical and cosmetic activities, opening up new challenging perspectives in white biotechnol- ogy applications. Keywords Biotechnological application . Distilled straws . Lavandin . Lavender . Phenolics . Terpenes Introduction Native to the Mediterranean area, the Lavandula genus (fam- ily Lamiaceae syn. Labiatae) is cultivated worldwide for its essential oils, which are used in perfumes, cosmetics, food processing and, more recently, in aromatherapy products. The Lavandula genus counts over 20 species, which display differences in growth habit, morphological characters, includ- ing leaf shape, arrangement of the flowers in the verticils, bract, calyx and corolla characters, and chemical composition (Lis-Balchin 2002a, b). Three species are principally cultivat- ed to produce essential oils: fine lavender, the most common (Lavandula angustifolia), spike lavender (Lavandula latifolia) and lavandin (Lavandula × intermedia), a sterile hybrid of L. angustifolia × L. latifolia. Growing at an altitude of 600– 1400 m, fields of fine lavender (reproduced generally by seeding) have a rather heterogeneous pattern compared with fields of lavandin (multiplied by cuttings) located at a lower altitude (200–1000 m) and characterized by regular purple rows (http://www.censo-lavande.fr/en/an-essential-sector-79. html#c281). Spike lavender grows wild over a large part of the Mediterranean area, preferring warmer and lower lying regions than either lavender or lavandin (Bienvenu 1995). The world production of lavender oil is 200 tons per year. The countries that dominate the lavender essential oil market are Bulgaria, UK, France, China, Ukraine, Spain and Moroc- co. Bulgaria has recently dethroned France as the world’ s top lavender oil producer with 3700 ha of lavender cultivars and up to 100 tons per year against France’ s 40 tons per year with 3500 ha of crops. The USA, Russia, Italy, New Zealand, Aus- tralia, India, Argentina, Brazil, South Africa and the Balkan M. Bou : J.<C. Sigoillot : C. B. Faulds : A. Lomascolo (*) Aix-Marseille Université, Polytech Marseille, UMR 1163 Biodiversité et Biotechnologie Fongiques, 13009 Marseille, France e-mail: anne.lomascolo@univ-amu.fr L. Lesage-Meessen : J.<C. Sigoillot : C. B. Faulds : A. Lomascolo INRA, UMR 1163 Biodiversité et Biotechnologie Fongiques, 13009 Marseille, France Appl Microbiol Biotechnol DOI 10.1007/s00253-015-6511-7