9 - Fine specialty chemicals for food and feed applications

Abstract

Microbial cells have been applied since years as biofactory for the production of many essential nutrients in both food and feed industries. Besides being applied as who cell mass as in case of single cell protein and probiotics, microbial cells were also used as main biofactory for different types of chemicals for both food and feed industries. Many known bulk chemicals are used extensively in food and feed industries such as organic acids (acetic, gluconic, citric, oxalic, and succinic acid), and amino acids (glutamic acid, lysine, methionine). Besides, many specific molecules such as polysaccharides, vitamins and antibiotics, and enzymes are also used as essential part of feed and food industries. During recent years, with the increased awareness of the importance of functional chemicals in food and feed chain to improve healthy growth, these molecules become one of the main components in food and feed products. In addition, many attempts have been carried out to improve the production processes of these specialized chemicals. These have been carried out using different approaches including the isolation of high producer microbial strains, different genetic modification approaches to reengineering of different pathways to increase the production yield and decrease the by-product formation, and optimization of the bioprocessing parameters and cultivation strategies. In addition, more attempts were also carried out for the potential use of sustainable feedstocks such as agro-industrial residues to improve the overall process economy.