Domestic Self-Sufficiency in Milk-Converting Enzymes

Abstract

Food security is part of national security, self-sufficiency in basic foodstuffs being its important indicator. The situation with cheese production raw materials in the Russian Federation is gradually improving. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, the production of raw milk is growing, which means that the level of self-sufficiency is gradually increasing. However, milk-converting enzymes can create a bottleneck situation since the entire rennet cheese production depends on them. The share of imported milk-coagulating enzyme preparations on the Russian market is 84.3 %. Recombinant milk-converting enzymes dominate both domestic and global cheese-making. However, Russia has neither microbial recombinant chymosins nor coagulants of its own. The domestic commercial production of milk-converting enzymes, especially of modern recombinant preparations, is one of the most relevant issues the domestic food industry will have to tackle in the nearest future.