Enzymes for food processing

As the first industrial sector to exploit enzymatic catalysis, the agri-food sector offers many different reasons for using enzymes. These are essentially either technological: accelerating or regulating enzymatic phenomena, improving the techno-functional qualities of manufactured products, developing new products, adding value to by-products, or economic: improving working conditions or productivity, regulating market prices.

Enzymes used in the agri-food sector account for almost 65% of sales in the industrial enzymes market, and only around forty of them are used in this industry.

According to a study by a consultancy firm (Frost & Sullivan), total revenue for industrial enzymes in Europe was estimated at at least $455 million in 1995, and should reach $906 million in 2003. Falling prices are the main factor affecting markets. This is attributable to the increasing production of gene-engineered enzymes, and is set to continue until the end of the millennium.

The most important enzymes in terms of revenues are still proteases, which covered 34.4% of the market in 1995. By 2003, they are likely to be dethroned by lipases (38.5% of the forecast market), followed by glycosidases (30.5%).

The main economic players in the industrial development of these biological catalysts in the agro-industrial sector are, on the one hand, the processors of agricultural production and, on the other, the designers and manufacturers of enzyme preparations used on an industrial scale. Enzymes are used extensively in the detergent, cheese, starch and other plant-based food industries (beverages, bakery-pastry, confectionery, etc.).

With relatively modest sales, the enzyme industry has little influence on the technological evolution of the industries it serves. On the other hand, since the main sources of enzymes for industrial use are microbial, it has made a major contribution to the development of the fermentation industries. Given these production conditions, biocatalysts still have many development possibilities: increasing production yields, modifying their activities, their specificities or their stabilities. But does this industrial sector have the resources to carry out the research and development work needed to ensure that enzymes enjoy the bright future they are generally acknowledged to have?