This comprehensive review explores the evolving role of probiotic‐based foods and beverages, highlighting their potential as functional and “ future foods ” that could significantly enhance nutrition, health, and overall well‐being. These products are gaining prominence for their benefits in gut health, immune support, and holistic wellness. However, their future success depends on addressing critical safety concerns and navigating administrative complexities. Ensuring that these products “ do more good than harm ” involves rigorous evaluations of probiotic strains, particularly those sourced from the human gastrointestinal tract. Lactic acid bacteria (LABs) serve as versatile and effective functional starter cultures for the development of probiotic foods and beverages. The review emphasizes the role of LABs as functional starter cultures and the development of precision probiotics in advancing these products. Establishing standardized guidelines and transparent practices is essential, requiring collaboration among regulatory bodies, industry stakeholders, and the scientific community. The review underscores the importance of innovation in developing “ friendly bacteria ,” “ super probiotics ,” precision fermentation, and effective safety assessments. The prospects of functional probiotic‐based foods and beverages rely on refining these elements and adapting to emerging scientific advancements. Ultimately, empowering consumers with accurate information, fostering innovation, and maintaining stringent safety standards will shape the future of these products as trusted and beneficial components of a health‐conscious society. Probiotic‐based foods and beverages, often infused with LABs, a “ friendly bacteria ,” are emerging as “ super probiotics ” and “ future foods ” designed to “ do more good than harm ” for overall health.

The promise of industrial biotechnology has been around since Chaim Weizmann developed acetone–butanol–ethanol fermentation at the University of Manchester in 1917 and the prospects nowadays look brighter than ever. Today’s biorefinery technologies would be almost unthinkable without biotechnology. This is a growing trend and biorefineries have also increased in importance in agriculture and the food industry. Novel biorefinery processes using solid state fermentation (SSF) technology have been developed as alternative to conventional processing routes, leading to the production of added-value products from agriculture and food industry raw materials. SSF involves the growth of microorganisms on moist solid substrate in the absence of free-flowing water. Future biorefineries based on SSF aim to exploit the vast complexity of the technology to modify biomass produced by agriculture and the food industry for valuable by-products through microbial bioconversion. In this review, a summary has been made of the attempts at using modern microbial SSF technology for future biorefineries for the production of many added-value products ranging from feedstock for the fermentation process and biodegradable plastics to fuels and chemicals.

Background: The growth ofAspergillus awamoriandAspergillus oryzaein a self-designed, multi-stacked circular tray solid-state bioreactor (SSB), operating in solid-state fermentation (SSF) conditions at a laboratory scale, was studied. The bioreactor was divided into six layers by six circular perforated trays. Wheat bran was used as both a carrier of bound mycelia and nutrient medium for the growth ofA. awamoriandA. oryzae. The new tray SSB is equipped with instrumentation (an oxygen (O₂)/carbon dioxide (CO₂) gas analyser and a thermocouple) to continuously monitor O₂consumption and CO₂and heat evolved, which can directly be used to monitor the fungal biomass. The integrated Gompertz model was used to describe the accumulated evolution of CO₂.Results: The results from the models strongly suggest that the evolved and accumulated CO₂can be used to excellently describe fungal growth. Another important parameter that can be determined by the gas balance method is the respiratory quotient (RQ). This is the ratio of the CO₂evolution rate (CER) to the O₂uptake rate (OUR). The use of CER and OUR confirmed that correlated measurements of microbial activity are available, and the determination of RQ may propose an explanation for differences from expected levels. The kinetic behaviour of the fungal culture, using raw CO₂, which represents an accumulation term, was integrated with respect to time and fitted to a Gompertz model, a log-like equation. The model can be used to generate parameter values that may be used to verify the experimental data, and also to simulate and optimise the process.Conclusion: Overall,A. awamoriandA. oryzaehave their own ability to degrade and utilise the complex compositions contained in the solid substrate, and fermentation conditions may lead to possible comparisons. In addition, multi-stacked circular tray SSB systems demonstrated an excellent system for further investigations of mass transfer and possibly for large-scale operation, though considerable optimisation work remains to be done; for example, the height/diameter ratio and total number of trays should be optimised.

This paper describes the nutritional requirements for the improvement of growth and sporulation of several strains of Monascus purpureus on solid state cultivation. The findings revealed that glucose enhanced growth of all M. purpureus strains tested but inhibited the sporulation rate. On the other hand, sucrose induced sporulation but inhibited production of cell mass. A combination of glucose and sucrose greatly enhanced sporulation and cell mass production of M. purpureus. Although growth and sporulation rate were related to the ratio of carbon to nitrogen (C/N ratio), the types and concentrations of carbon and nitrogen sources also greatly influenced the growth kinetics. Among the media tested, Hiroi‐PDA medium was the most preferred medium for all M. purpureus strains tested for the enhancement of radial growth rate, sporulation, and cell production. Hence, Hiroi‐PDA could be suggested as the generic basal medium for the cultivation of M. purpureus. However, individual medium optimization is required for significant enhancement in growth and sporulation of each strain of M. purpureus.