The potentials and challenges of using microalgae as an ingredient to produce meat analogues

Recently, meat analogues have been introduced as a healthier and more sustainable alternative to alleviate or even overcome the increasing demand of meat consumption. Microalgae, a novel protein resource, are proposed to be a promising ingredient for meat analogues. In this review, we outlook the potential routes to process microalgae into meat analogues. The article contains four sections. The first section lists ingredients properties to investigate the feasibility of using microalgae for meat analogues. The second section reviews the industrial cultivation of microalgae as the feedstock for meat analogues. The third section compares technologies used to produce plant-based meat analogues, and highlights the potential manufacturing route for microalgae processing. The last section discusses the economical and technical challenges in microalgae production for meat analogues, and provides some potential solutions. We conclude that microalgae are promising candidates to produce meat analogues from nutritional perspective. The high protein content and presence of diverse nutraceutical compounds can enable the food industry to produce meat analogues with excellent nutritional value. The main challenge for producing microalgae-based meat analogues is the incomplete technological route. The texturing techniques for microalgal biomass to meat analogues is still at early stage and requires further investigation. The pretreatment of the raw ingredients to remove unfavorable odor and color is another area to explore. Another challenge is the economic constraints of microalgae production due to the seldom scale-up and inefficient processing techniques, which can be improved by numerous cultivation strategies.