Interest and awareness of consumption of healthy foods and their benefits have attracted the consumer’s attention towards probiotics. Probiotics are found to afford a number of health benefits, like existence in extreme gastrointestinal environment and their viability during their transit from ingestion to intestine serves as a major challenge. This challenge is addressed by coating the probiotic cells with a wall material that affords protection against these conditions. The coating of wall material/shell or encapsulating the probiotic cells involves many techniques each with its own merits and demerits. The shell/wall materials for encapsulation have different characteristics like stability, solubility and targeted release. A large number of materials are used for encapsulating the probiotics; polymers are extensively used because of its cross-linking ability. Many natural polymers are available; the most suitable natural polymer for application in food includes polysaccharides, proteins or their mixtures. This paper aims to provide an overview of the natural polymers their sources and use in the encapsulation of probiotics with particular attention on plant derived natural polymers.
