Traditional biotechnology is the use of living microorganisms in food production by methods developed long before modern genetic engineering — fermentation above all. Brewing beer, baking leavened bread, making wine, cheese, yoghurt, soy sauce, and cured sausages all rely on yeasts, bacteria, and moulds transforming raw materials through their metabolism. These are biotechnologies in the original sense: humans directing biology to make food safer, tastier, and longer-lasting, refined over millennia of trial and error. The term distinguishes these ancient, accepted practices from modern biotechnology — genetic modification, gene editing — which attracts far more public debate despite resting on the same principle of harnessing living systems.