Food biotechnology is a process scientists use to enhance the production, nutritional value, safety, and taste of foods. It can also benefit the environment by improving crops so that they need fewer pesticides. A form of biotechnology has been used to produce wine, beer and bread. Selective breeding of animals such as horses and dogs has been going on for centuries. Selective breeding of essential foods such as rice, corn and wheat have created thousands of local varieties with improved yield compared to their wild ancestors. Through newer biotechnology and genetic engineering, scientists use techniques such as recombinant DNA (rDNA). Scientists, by using rDNA, can move one gene, the inherited instruction for specific traits, from one organism to another and omit the undesirable traits. This enables food producers to obtain animal and crop improvements in a much more precise, controlled and predictable manner. Food producers can use new biotechnology to produce new products with desirable characteristics. These include characteristics such as disease and drought-resistant plants, leaner meat and enhanced flavor and nutritional quality of foods. This technology has also been used to develop life-saving vaccines, insulin, cancer treatment and other pharmaceuticals to improve quality of life. Modern food biotechnology is a refined version of this same process. Today, scientists obtain desired traits by adding or removing plant genes. (Genes are the hereditary units that form the “blueprint” of all living beings. They determine characteristics such as the number of peas in a pod, the color of the flowers, and so on.)

Benefits of biotechnology are- nutrition, safety, bounty, natural protection from pests and cost savings.

The Indian food industry is poised for huge growth, increasing its contribution in world food trade every year. Accounting for about 32 per cent of the country's total food market, the food processing industry is one of the largest industries in India and is ranked fifth in terms of production, consumption, export and expected growth. The total food production in India is likely to double in the next 10 years with the country's domestic food market estimated to reach US$ 258 billion by 2015. The Indian food industry stood at US$ 135 billion in 2012 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10 per cent to about US$ 200 billion by 2015, according to a report by KPMG.

FURTHER INFORMATION:

Handbook on Food Biotechnology describes the detailed information on the subject. The major contents of this book are- fermented and bio-reactor design, development and testing of a milled Shea nut mixer, process development for production, drying of ginger using solar cabinet dryer, design and development of saffron, development and evaluation of low cost coffee pulped, processing and preservation of jack fruit (artocarpus heterophyllous bar (thandra), quality changes in banana (musa acuminate) wines on adding pectolase and passion fruit, sensory and yield response surface analysis of supercritical co2 extracted aromatic oil from roasted coffee, large scale separation and isolation of proteins, studies on the preparation of dehydrated potato cubes, studies on bitterness development in kinnow juice ready-to-serve beverage, squash, jam and candy, effect of incorporation of defatted soy flour on the quality of sweet biscuits, extraction, carbohydrate composition and rheological characteristics of gum from ber zizyphus mauritiana lamk), prospects for incorporation of defatted  mucuna flour in biscuits formulation, detoxifying enzymes etc.

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