The Juneberry fruit belongs to the Rosacea family and is native to the northern prairies and plains of North America. The berries are edible, quite pithy and are an excellent source of bioactive compounds such as anthocyanins, flavonols, procyanidins and phenolic acid.

In this work, the extraction of Juneberry (Amelanchier Lamarckii) pomace was carried out by maceration with ethanol/water (80/20, 40/60, 0/100, v/v) for two hours at room temperature. The chemical composition and antioxidant and antimicrobial activity were evaluated; in addition, the profile of the phenolic compounds was determined by HPLC-MS. Also, the bioavailability of the compounds in the pomace of Juneberry from the selected extract was evaluated by measuring the relevant bioactives before and after gastrointestinal digestion in vitro using the INFOGEST 2.0 protocol.

The mean and standard deviation of triplicate amounts of total phenolic compounds before and after the gastrointestinal digestion of ethanolic June berry pomace extracts were 210.1 ± 0.8, 170.1 ± 3.8 and 72.9 ± 0.3 mg/g, respectively. It was observed that after simulated digestion, the total phenolic and flavonoid content of the Juneberry pomace extracts decreased significantly during the gastric and intestinal phases compared to the crude extracts. As far as antioxidant activity is concerned, a reduction in all the parameters studied was observed after gastric digestion.

Due to the high content of natural colourants and bioactive compounds in the pomace of Amelanchier Lamarckii, this species could, in the future, be useful for the food industry as a potential ingredient for functional food formulations, flavours or colourants.