The potential and challenge of microalgae as promising future food sources

Background: With the increase of the global population, food production cannot keep pace with the strong growth of demand, and the food crisis is not impossible. At the same time, growing environmental concerns are also forcing changes to the traditional food supply system. Microalgae are attracting more and more attention as future food sources. Microalgae have the advantages of strong carbon sequestration ability and high photosynthetic efficiency, and will play an important role in the new food supply system and world carbon neutrality process in the future. Scope and approach: This paper reviews the opportunities brought by the progress of microalgae biotechnology for the food application of microalgae, analyzes the application advantages of microalgae products, and summarizes the current challenges. The development direction of microalgae application in the food field was discussed from the aspects of safety, environmental impact, production cost and function. Key findings and conclusions: With the advancement of microalgal biotechnology, microalgal products exhibit many interesting benefits in terms of health benefits, functional properties, nutritional value, etc. Microalgal products, like non-animal proteins, high-value compounds and microalgal dry biomass, are gradually penetrating their food market. However, as the development direction of the future food field, there are still many problems to be solved for microalgae-based food. Challenges such as high production costs, low product acceptance and unknown safety, are the current bottlenecks restricting practical application. The joint efforts of people in various fields are needed to promote the development of microalgae-based food.