system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
How are commercial amounts of Citric Acid produced?

Are there groves of Citrus Trees dedicated for this purpose, or are there other means of production?
gpt
It's not cost-effective to prepare citric acid by extraction from fruit.

Instead, it is produced in bioreactors by the action of *Aspergillus* type molds on various sugar sources. By engineering the conditions just right, most of the sugars are turned into citric acid, which can then be isolated from the "broth", purified, and packaged for distribution.