Biotechnological Production of Natural Flavor Materials

Abstract

Increasing demand for natural flavors in the USA and Europe has resulted in the study and industrial exploitation of the biosynthetic capabilities of many micro- organisms and their constituent enzymes used in traditional food-processing industries. Market-driven industrial research was initiated in the early 1980s and concentrated on screening micro-organisms and enzymes and applying the knowledge obtained for the development of suitable production processes. Today, some 100 natural flavor compo- nents are probably being produced using biotechnological processes and an overview of the most important of these processes will be given. The application of some new, novel enzymatic reactions which are potentially useful for the synthesis of flavor materials will also be discussed. Contemporary microbiological techniques, including recombinant DNA technology, are now increasingly being applied to enhance the efficiency of biocatalysts in order to reduce production costs.