Novel Insights About Precision Fermentation

Over the last few years, precision fermentation has boosted the production of food ingredients including proteins and enzymes, lipids, carbohydrates, vitamins, dyes, and antioxidants, to attend to the rising demand of the food technology sector. The remarkable advances in precision fermentation were achieved by using both genetic engineering and metabolic engineering strategies. Therefore, this chapter reviews methods and approaches from genetic and metabolic engineering, as well as systems biology that have been applied to build truly ingenious microbial strains with the potential to impact the food technology sector. This chapter also provides various examples of recent studies, patents, and startups in which precision fermentation allowed the production of food ingredients. The production of these ingredients from a circular bioeconomy point of view is also addressed, underscoring the advantages and limiting factors that impair the use of agro and food industry side streams for the development of alternative fermentation media. Moreover, regulatory aspects concerning food safety and consumer acceptance are also discussed, finalizing this chapter with an overview of the main current challenges and perspectives for this field.