Finally, encapsulation gives a structure and allows creating new function or innovative systems (Poncelet et al., 2007) for probiotic products. The technology of encapsulation of probiotic living cells evolved from the immobilised cell culture technology used in the biotechnological industry. Probiotics present two sets of problems when considering encapsulation: their size (typically between 1 and 5 lm diameter), which immediately excludes nanotechnologies, and the fact that they must be kept alive. This latter aspect has been crucial in selecting the appropriate ME technology(Champagne and Fustier, 2007a; Zuidam and Shimoni, 2009). Several technologies can be applied to probiotic encapsulation and each of them provides microcapsules with different characteristics in terms of range size of particles and of type of capsule (Fig. 2). For
example, emulsification allows the production of a wide particle size range from 0.2 to 5000 lm whereas, extrusion gives a smaller range size but it does not provide particles under 300 lm. In Fig. 2 it can be seen the different types of particles obtained (matrix or reservoir type) by each method