Development of Process Strategies for Anthocyanin- Based Food Colorant Production Using Vitis vinifera Cell Cultures

The development of a plant cell-based process is initially dependent upon the successful establishment of cell lines that have stable high yields of compounds, followed by adaptation of the culture system to commercial processes. The qualitative differences observed between highly selected cell lines and the initial cell lines bear a particular importance in the development of anthocyanin-based food colorants. Most of the secondary metabolites are localized in the vacuole and may be harvested from cells using destructive methods, i.e., cell disruption. The impeller agitation speed affected the quantity and quality of biomass obtained at the end of the culture cycle. The extraction unit is used not only to recover, stabilize, and purify the anthocyanins, but also to recycle ethanol and com syrup, used for anthocyanin extraction and in the anthocyanin- promoting medium, respectively. The development of an industrial process to produce anthocyanins from V. vinifera cell cultures is theoretically feasible.