Food science is defined as the study of the physical, biological and chemical of food, which most of the studies related to food processing and food deterioration while food technology is the application of it involved in packaging, preservation and food safety (Institute of Fodd Technologies, 2019). The fields that closely related to the food technology are such as biotechnology, engineering, nutrition and quality and safety management. In this review, biotechnology will be discussed on its roles and applications towards food industry.

Biotechnology is the scientific techniques used to produce new and specific desired traits or characteristics in various organisms such as plants, animals or microorganisms through genetic study. In food production, food biotechnology has been widely used to create another alternative in improving food productivity, safety and quality. Food biotechnology has been widely used by people around the world because from the technology, they can develop new species or a hybrid product that exhibit better characteristics than the original food.

In this review, it will be discussed regarding the animal and plant biotechnology in food industry. Animal biotechnology is where genes of the organisms are being modified to improve the characteristics to be used in various fields such as in pharmaceuticals, agricultural, industrial and food applications (About Bioscience, n.d). Plant biotechnology or crop biotechnology is the one that developing new varieties and traits in plants and crops using genetics and genomics, marker-assisted selection (MAS) and transgenic or genetic engineered crops. This allowed the researchers to select specific genes for improving the crops and products (National Institute of Food and Agriculture, n.d). Genomics is where genetic information is being used to improve livestock selection and breeding, determine optimum nutrition needed and producing high-quality products (International Food Information Council Foundation, n.d).

Animal biotechnology has been continuously used in order to get a genetically modifies animals that can synthesize therapeutic protein, improving the rate of growth and prevent disease or virus against the animals (About Bioscience, n.d). In animal biotechnology, it has been gone through many advanced progress such as in gene sequencing, gene expression and metabolic profiling. The examples of animal biotechnology are gene cloning and genetic engineering. In plant biotechnology, the importance of biotechnology in a crop is to provide a plants that are sustainable to any environmental situations, can produce a good fruits or vegetables that have the best traits and characteristics and increase the shelf life.

Cloning is one of the earliest and well-known technologies used in animal. Cloning helps in producing and increasing the number of good and high-quality livestock. The most suitable animal is being cloned to produce identical twins and further breed to get the other generations without changing any of the genetic materials of the animals itself. In 1996, the famous clone animal, which is a sheep named Dolly as shown in Figure 1 was the one that remarks the cloning technology now. However, Dolly was not the first clone animal where the first clone animal was in 1984 followed by two other sheep in 1995 (The Life of Dolly, n.d). The success in Dolly’s cloning was because of it had been cloned from an adult meanwhile the earlier cloning had been done using embryonic cells. It is considered to be the most successful cloning that had been done during that time. Nowadays, cattle, goats, horses, mules and rats also have undergone cloning.

Other from cloning, genetic engineering also one of the biotechnologies that have been widely used. Genetic engineering is considered to be the most recombinant DNA technology that involves in insertion of foreign genes into plasmids of bacteria (Rosenberg, 2017). It also capable in direct protein synthesis, which could help scientist and researchers to undergo wide researches where commonly used in plants and livestock. It can be established by using multiple techniques, where nowadays advanced technologies have been widely used to improve the genetic engineering process. Traditionally, the technique involve the insertion of genes at random sequence in the host’s genome, however by having advanced technologies, the genes can be inserted at specific locations.