Since the early fifties intense efforts have been made
to explore new alternate protein sources as food
supplements, primarily in anticipation of a repeatedly
predicted insufficient future protein supply. For these,
i.e. yeasts, fungi, bacteria and micro-algae, the name
Single Cell Protein (SCP) was coined to describe the
protein production from biomass, originating from
different microbial sources.
In the case of alga it has to be stressed that, due to
technical and economical reasons, it is not the general intention to isolate and utilize the sole protein, but to
propagate the whole algal biomass. Hence, the term
SCP is not quite correct, because the micro-algal
material is definitely more than just protein. It has an
unusual breadth of nutritional quality when compared
to conventional plants in our diet and consists, next to
protein, of a broad spectrum of other nutritious
compounds viz. peptides, carbohydrates, lipids, vitamins,
pigments, minerals and other valuable trace
elements. To date, world-wide various sophisticated
technologies are employed for mass production and
processing of photoautotrophic micro-algae, the annualworld production of all species is estimated to about
10,000t/y