Presently SSF has been applied to large-scale industrial processes mainly in Japan. Traditional koji, manufactured in small wooden and bamboo trays, has changed gradually to more sophisticated processes: fixed bed room fermentations, rotating drum processes and automated stainless steel chambers or trays with microprocessors, electronics sensors and servomechanical stirring, loading and discharging. The usual scale in sake or miso factories is around 1 or 2 metric tons per batch, but reactors can be made and delivered by engineering firms to a capacity as large as 20 tons (Fujiwara, Ltd.).
Outside Japan, Kumar (1987) has reported medium scale production of enzymes, such as pectinases, in India. Koji type processes are widely used in small factories of the Far East (Hesseltine, 1972) and koji fermentation has been adapted to local conditions in United States (USA) and other Western countries, including Cuba (III A). In France, a new firm (Lyven S.A.) was recently created to commercialise a process for pectinase production from sugarbeet pulp. Blue cheese production in France is being modernised with improvements on the mechanical conditioning of cheeses, production of mould spores and control of environmental conditions.
Composting, which was developed for small-scale production of mushrooms, has been modernised and scaled up in Europe and USA. Also, various firms in Europe and USA produce mushroom spawn by cultivating Agaricus, Pleurotus or Shii-Take aseptically on sterile grains in static conditions.