Biotechnology is now taken for granted in medicine, pharmaceuticals and agriculture. Food biotechnology has so far focused mainly on yield and nutrition rather than processing. In the near future, however, rapid advances in genetics, enzymology and contaminant detection are anticipated to change the way food is processed as well.
Unlike pharmaceuticals or medicine, where biotechnology can do things that were impossible till recently, food processors are ultimately limited by what consumers prefer to buy. The enormous volume and intense competition in the food industry has resulted from efficient, low-cost processing techniques that will virtually be impossible to change. Fermented foods are a natural target for designed processability, since organisms involved could be programmed to produce amino acids, vitamins, pigments, flavors, sweeteners and so on that are used in food processing.Though the public is generally quite receptive to food processing biotechnology, the processing of genetically altered microbes is not problem-free. There is an increased concern about the introduction of allergens, antigens or foreign genes into humans, but this should not be a problem where limited, specific changes are introduced into microbial genome. At any rate, the genetic changes introduced through bioengineering are meager compared to those induced through chemical mutagenesis, radiation or even traditional selective breeding. It is interesting that there has been no public outcry over the use of recombinant food processing enzymes.
