This landmark case overturned a Patents and Trademark Office denial of the patent for a genetically engineered microbe. Supreme Court by a 5-4 vote in 1980 ruled that new life forms can be patented.

Companies looked for a “rennet substitute.” Recombinant DNA technologies involving microbes were becoming popular and companies turned to it in the 1980s.Ĭompanies were encouraged to do so when the U.S. When calf rennet became scarce and unreliably available in the 1960s and 70s as the veal industry was declining due to the animal rights movement but demand for cheese increased, calf rennet became very expensive. This whey, considered a byproduct of cheese production, is often added to many other food products today, especially packaged foods. Approximately 90-95% of the small quantity remains in the whey produced during cheese manufacture. Enzymes used to coagulate milk in cheese production (disregarding other enzymes known as lipases which may be added to some cheeses for flavor and which are usually derived from animals even today although this is changing), whether a single type (chymosin) or a mixture, are used in very small quantities (e.g., approximately one ounce per one hundred gallons of milk), and later largely removed from the final cheese product. In 2012, best estimates from enzyme companies and dairy groups attribute 90% of all commercial cheese production in the United States to FPC.īefore we get too far ahead, it’s helpful to keep in mind the role of chymosin/rennet in cheese manufacture. Labeling issues arise and a comparison with the European Union will be discussed.Īs we wrote in a 2008 article on rennet, there are four major types of rennet: calf rennet, microbial rennet, FPC, and vegetable rennet. In this update, The VRG more closely examines FPC, which is often referred to on labels as “microbial rennet.” In the process, we will discuss the role of bioengineering, such as recombinant DNA technology, in enzyme production commercially practiced today.

” In 2007, The VRG was told by several cheese companies and enzyme makers that approximately 70% of all cheese in the United States was produced with FPC. It has been genetically modified so it is a GMO product. (Chymosin is the primary enzyme in rennet responsible for curdling.) He told us: “Ultimately, maybe twenty-five years ago, the gene used to make microbial chymosin is from calf rennet. In 2007, The VRG learned from an employee at Danisco, a major enzyme manufacturer, that fermentation produced chymosin (FPC) responsible for curdling milk used in making cheese, originated from a calf gene.

What does fpc stand for