Fungi for future foods

The rapid growth of human civilizations has led to imminent pressures to develop new food products with increased nutritional characteristics and decreased environmental footprints. Filamentous fungi, a class of microorganisms that have been utilized in a wide variety of foods for thousands of years, have recently garnered widespread attention in research communities and commercial ventures seeking to explore new and innovative applications in a diverse array of food products including, but not limited to, their more established applications as alternative proteins. Technological advances in the cultivation and processing of filamentous fungi have created new frontiers in the control of textures, flavors, and nutritional properties of fungi-based foods. This review highlights technological advances in the production of fungi-based foods from cultivation to product manufacturing, presents the current state of the art in fungi-based food products, and offers thoughts on their future trajectories. Emphasis is given to circular bioprocessing concepts for the sustainable utilization of agricultural and food processing byproducts.