<DIV>Traditionally, food manufacturers have utilized delivery systems to encapsulate functional ingredients designed to improve food quality and safety, such as flavors, colors, antioxidants, enzymes, and antimicrobials. More recently there has been interest in the use of delivery systems to encapsulate bioactive components that have been shown to be beneficial to human health. This research has been stimulated by the food and beverage industries' interest in creating products specifically designed to promote human health and wellness, and to prevent chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hypertension, obesity, osteoporosis, and cancer. The technical challenges involved in encapsulating these components into desirable commercial products has led to rapid developments in methods for encapsulating, protecting, and delivering functional food ingredients to improve food quality, safety and health.<BR><BR>The editors and contributors provide a comprehensive overview of some of the most important current areas of research on the development of delivery systems suitable for utilization in foods and beverages. The first section focuses on the physicochemical and physiological requirements of delivery systems for food ingredients and nutraceuticals. In particular, it highlights the various kinds of delivery systems that can be created from food grade ingredients, the different types of active compounds that need to be encapsulated, some of the most important technical challenges associated with encapsulating these ingredients, and their potential fate within the gastrointestinal tract after consumption. Part two reviews existing and novel processing technologies for encapsulation and delivery of functional food ingredients, including spray and freeze drying, spray cooling and chilling, extrusion, coating and controlled phase separation, while part three explores specific kinds of delivery systems that can be used in food and beverage applications, including microemulsion-,liposome-, biopolymer-, emulsion- and lipid-based systems. Concluding chapters focus on the practical application of delivery systems within the food and beverage industries, such as flavors, bioactive lipids, minerals and probiotics.</div>