Starch granules as active guest molecules or microorganism delivery systems

Starch granules contain an internal channel structure that can be used to encapsulate and deliver active ingredients such as nutrients, drugs, chemicals and microorganisms. Nature creates a broad range of starch granule sizes and compositions in different plants and this range of encapsulation matrices provides a great deal of commercial opportunity. Starch granules can be utilised for encapsulation in their native form or treated with amylases/amyloglucosidase to facilitate the entry of active ingredients into the granules. Interactions within the granules can be relatively passive or more structured in the form of complexes (such as amylose-lipid complexes). This mini-review evaluates this application of starch and potential commercial product opportunities.