Banana flavor: insights into isoamyl acetate production

Abstract

Isoamyl acetate is one of the most important flavor compounds used in food industries because of its characteristic banana flavor. The ester is used as a flavoring compound in many foods and drinks, such as honey, butterscotch, artificial coffee, beverages and perfumes. Also it is one of the major flavor components of fermented alcoholic beverages, such as sake, beer and wines. The isoamyl acetate production is traditionally carried out via chemical synthesis by Fischer esterification mechanism. However, because consumers are moving to foods containing natural flavors due to environmental and health issues, biotechnology is emerging as a competitive alternative to traditional chemical synthesis for the production of isoamyl acetate. Enzyme and whole-cell biocatalysis and fermentation were recently proposed for isoamyl acetate production that can be considered close to „natural‟. These new bioprocesses are in development stages, and most of them limited only to laboratory scale, however, they have high potential to be industrially useful and could offer an alternative way to obtain natural banana flavor. The current review discusses the myriad of reaction systems developed for isoamyl acetate production