Commercial production of Haematococcus astaxanthin is
very recent. Astaxanthin accumulation in Haematococcus
is induced under stressful growth conditions. Thus,
producers that use large-scale, outdoor, systems have
adopted a two stage strategy whereby the first stage
consists in growing Haematococcus biomass under conditions conducive to fast growth in enclosed photobioreactors followed by a second stage in which
carotenogenesis is induced by changing the cells’ environment to stress promoting conditions. Alternatively Haematococcus astaxanthin can be produced indoors
mixotrophically.The astaxanthin-rich cells are easily
harvested by settling and centrifugation Then, the cell
biomass is cracked (to increase astaxanthin bioavability and dried. Finally, the dried product can be directly
encapsulated or the astaxanthin extracted to be included
in nutraceutical formulations