Fig. 3. The future of microorganisms in food.

A schematic showing the obstacles and future developments in the path to adopting widespread use of Microbial foods. In the beige circle the main obstacles are shown, including the economic viability of some processes, the consumer acceptance of some products, especially GMOs and, in some cases, the presence of undesired molecules. Future developments, shown in the blue arrow, aim to improve microbial-based foods and overcome these obstacles, and include producing nutritionally complete whole foods, alternatives to animal products (meat, dairy, eggs), and ingredients (like flavours or nutraceuticals) that can be made in an affordable and sustainable way, perhaps using waste or CO₂ as carbon sources.