5 - Recent developments in fermentation technology: toward the next revolution in food production

Abstract

Fermentation has come a long way from its humble beginning as a technology for household food preservation into a sophisticated technology for the manufacture of pharmaceuticals, biochemicals, enzymes, foods, beverages, and food ingredients at industrial scale. The developments in microbiology, biotechnology, process engineering, and process control and instrumentation over the last century have made that possible. While the pharmaceutical and the biotechnology industries fully benefited from advances in fermentation technology, industrial food and beverage fermentation remains a combination of age-old traditions with modern technological innovations. Today, consumer megatrends such as healthy (foods for health, natural, clean label) and ethical (plant-based, sustainable, animal welfare) consumption are fueling a renewed interest in fermented foods and fermentation technology worldwide. Fermentation has also become one of the pivotal technologies in the alternative protein revolutions and as such it is undergoing a transformation into a technology for sustainable production of food ingredients traditionally derived from animal or plant sources. In this regard, precision fermentation, is at the forefront of this transformation with a huge potential to improve the sustainability of our food system. This chapter gives an overview of food fermentation, fermentation process design, industrial food fermentation processes, and current trends in food fermentation. Current challenges facing the fermentation industry and future research directions are also highlighted.