Page 19 - FoodFocusThailand No.208 JULY 2023
P. 19

SPECIAL FOCUS




                     Modern Food Biotechnology:


                     Industrial Scale Value-Added Solutions




                     Humans have known about biotechnology for thousands of years. Biotechnology is the process of utilizing
                     living organisms to develop the process or products for maximum benefit. Currently, food biotechnology
                     has changed according to the era to meet the needs of consumers while maintaining quality and safety
                     by improving the quality of food and beverage, such as increasing nutritional content, improving sensory
                     properties, and prolonging shelf life, etc.






                        Nowadays, biotechnology is being used to develop more   by developing a production process from food-grade
                     synthetic food and is expected to grow at a rate of 7% CARG   microbial cell mass in a pilot plant that can be formed
                     through  2023-2032,  especially  meat  replacements.  It  can   into various quality and safe food products and the
                     synthesize  the  required  nutrients  efficiently  and  precisely.   development of cider vinegar from Thai fruits, such as
                     Synthetic processes are different from natural processes that   fermented vinegar from mangosteen and pineapple by
                     consume  a  lot  of  resources  and  time,  including  difficulty   using  microbial  starter  culture  that  reduces  the
                     controlling production quality. For example, Air-based Protein   fermentation process to single-step.
                     from the United States uses Hydrogenotrophic bacteria to   In addition, modern food biotechnology has been
                     produce high-quality protein powder and other nutrients from   developed in a wide range of food industries, such as
                     the air, which can be transformed into meat replacements   selecting  beneficial  microbial  strains  and  producing
                     products, or Ava Winery, which turns water into quality wine in   functional compounds, the technology of a simulated gut
                     15 minutes by studying the molecular composition of wine            model of the digestive system in the stomach, small
                     which consist of amino acids, sugars, and various organic   intestine, colonic absorption, etc.
                     compounds that were brought to be synthesized from the   Therefore,  Food  Focus  Thailand  magazine  has
                     laboratory.                                           compiled interesting research results on food biotech-
                        The National Center for Genetic Engineering and    nology, as mentioned above, to reveal the success of
                     Biotechnology (BIOTEC), under the National Science and   research and development in science and biotechnology
                     Technology Development Agency (NSTDA) in Thailand, has   and lead to the creation of value-added products from
                     promoted the development of research results and transfer   limited resources as well as driving the bio-economy of
                     technology to the private sector to apply biotechnology   Thailand.
                     systematically at the industrial level. The successful researches
                     on a commercial scale are meat substitutes from mycoprotein



























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