Food structuring using microfluidics: Updated progress in fundamental principles and structure types

As an interdisciplinary manufacturing technique, microfluidics has attracted great attention in fields such as food structuring, chemical analysis, biomedicine, and biological testing. In particular, significant efforts have been recently made to design food structures via microfluidics, starting with its fundamental principles, thus contributing to developing next-generation, high-quality food products with satisfactory properties and attributes. This review first introduces the fundamental principles of microfluidic systems, and then focuses on their applications in the fabrication of different food structures, including emulsions (via shear-driven, spontaneous, or wettability-controlled emulsification), foams, microparticles (biopolymers-based and liposomes), and microgels (induced by temperature or ions). The upscaling strategies for microfluidic devices and challenges for application in the food industry are also reviewed. Despite such advances, it is still vital to further understand the flowing, droplet formation, and structuring of multi-component food matrices and the related developments of cost-effective microfluidic devices to meet practical requirements.