ABSTRACT
Microencapsulation is a process by which active probiotic culture can be encapsulated within a polymeric material to produce particles in the micrometer to mm range. Microencapsulation provides means to protect the probiotic bacteria from the adverse acidic condition of different food matrices and storage conditions such as temperature, environmental humidity, pH, etc., Mask the aroma/flavor, improve survivability in gastrointestinal condition and transform liquids into easy to handle solid ingredients. This chapter describes the recent and advanced techniques of probiotic microencapsulation to form probiotic microcapsules and various techniques have been discussed for probiotic microencapsulation and incorporation in fermented and non-fermented foods, including microencapsulation in by using complex coacervation, extrusion, spray drying, spray chilling, prilling, emulsion, and freeze-drying.
