ORIGINAL RESEARCH published: 01 June 2022 doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2022.862080 Frontiers in Microbiology | www.frontiersin.org 1 June 2022 | Volume 13 | Article 862080 Edited by: Laurent Dufossé, Université de La Réunion, France Reviewed by: Lourdes Morales-Oyervides, Universidad Autónoma de Coahuila, Mexico Farhan Binti Mohd Said, Universiti Malaysia Pahang, Malaysia *Correspondence: Abd El-Latif Hesham hesham_egypt5@agr.bsu.edu.eg Specialty section: This article was submitted to Food Microbiology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Microbiology Received: 27 January 2022 Accepted: 04 April 2022 Published: 01 June 2022 Citation: Abdel-Raheam HEF, Alrumman SA, Gadow SI, El-Sayed MH, Hikal DM, Hesham AE-L and Ali MMA (2022) Optimization of Monascus purpureus for Natural Food Pigments Production on Potato Wastes and Their Application in Ice Lolly. Front. Microbiol. 13:862080. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2022.862080 Optimization of Monascus purpureus for Natural Food Pigments Production on Potato Wastes and Their Application in Ice Lolly Hossam E. F. Abdel-Raheam 1 , Sulaiman A. Alrumman 2 , Samir I. Gadow 3 , Mohamed H. El-Sayed 4 , Dalia M. Hikal 5 , Abd El-Latif Hesham 6 * and Maysa M. A. Ali 7 1 Department of Food Sciences, Faculty of Agriculture, Beni-Suef University, Beni Suef, Egypt, 2 Biology Department, College of Science, King Khalid University, Abha, Saudi Arabia, 3 Department of Agricultural Microbiology, National Research Centre, Agriculture and Biology Research Institute, Cairo, Egypt, 4 Department of Botany and Microbiology, Faculty of Science, Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt, 5 Nutrition and Food Science, Home Economics Department, Faculty of Specific Education, Mansoura University, Mansoura, Egypt, 6 Department of Genetics, Faculty of Agriculture, Beni-Suef University, Beni Suef, Egypt, 7 Botany and Microbiology Department, Faculty of Science, Assuit University, Assuit, Egypt During potato chips manufacturing, large amounts of wastewater and potato powder wastes are produced. The wastewater obtained at washing after cutting the peeled potatoes into slices was analyzed, and a large quantity of organic compounds and minerals such as starch (1.69%), protein (1.5%), total carbohydrate (4.94%), reducing sugar (0.01%), ash (0.14%), crude fat (0.11%), Ca (28 mg/L), Mg (245 mg/L), Fe (45.5 mg/L), and Zn (6.5 mg/L) were recorded; these wastes could be considered as valuable by-products if used as a fermentation medium to increase the value of the subsequent products and to exceed the cost of reprocessing. In this study, we used wastewater and potato powder wastes as a growth medium for pigment and biomass production by Monascus purpureus (Went NRRL 1992). The response surface methodology was used to optimize total pigment and fungal biomass production. The influence of potato powder waste concentration, fermentation period, and peptone concentration on total pigment and biomass production was investigated using the Box-Behnken design method with 3-factors and 3-levels. The optimal production parameters were potato powder waste concentration of 7.81%, fermentation period of 12.82 days, and peptone concentration of 2.87%, which produced a maximum total pigment of 29.86 AU/ml that include, respectively, a maximum biomass weight of 0.126 g/ml and the yield of pigment of 236.98 AU/g biomass. The pigments produced were used as coloring agents for ice lolly. This study has revealed that the ice lolly preparations supplemented with these pigments received high acceptability. Finally, we recommend using wastewater and potato powder wastes for pigment and biomass production, which could reduce the cost of the pigment production process on an industrial scale in the future. Keywords: potato powder wastes, Monascus purpureus, pigment, response surface methodology, chips manufacturing wastewater, ice lolly