Potential and Challenges of Applied Biotechnology in Mushroom Bio-based Products in the Food Industry

Mushrooms are popular because of their high nutritional value. Biotechnology provides powerful tools for the sustainable development of mushrooms. Many advances in the non-meat-based food industry represent the significant role of mushroom biotechnology. Mushrooms are a rich source of proteins and have low or zero fat and cholesterol. In addition, some mushrooms are a source of bioactive compounds. Therefore, mushroom-based products have become widely accepted foods worldwide. The new techniques used to meet the consumer requirements of the mushroom increase the quality and convenience to use new product development. Technological developments have generally witnessed increasing crop production capacities in cultivation technologies. Besides that, new mushroom-based food products are developing; and the production techniques are innovated to improve the quality of final mushroom-based goods. The mushroom-based products are mainly produced as a result of contributions from mushroom cultivation in developing countries such as China, Europe, India, USA, and Vietnam. The challenge is finding opportunities to increase mushroom and mushroom-based product consumption capabilities with increasing world population and non-meat-based food consumption. This chapter reviews the recent advances and challenges for sustainable production of mushroom-based products as a non-meat food source in the food industry.

Keywords: Bioactive, Food industry, Nutrients, Non-meat based, Mushrooms.