It is well known that the vast majority of food colorants used in food and beverage applications comes from the pigments synthesized by plant materials. Besides, stability of many plant-derived colors can create formulation problems. Factors such as the region, the climate, the environment, the cultivar all impact colors shade, strength and overall stability in the final product. As an alternate, fungi of the genus Monascus, Penicillium and Talaromyces are known as excellent producers of red pigments. These red pigments are of industrial interest as they are stable and non-toxic and can be used as food colorants.This present research deals with the selection of high throughput red pigment producing Talaromyces albobiverticillius as a source of polyketide based natural food colorants. Design of Experiments (DoE) and Response Surface Methodology (RSM) have been used to optimize culture conditions and media formulation of fermentation process. Using Box Behnken Design (BBD), the influence of different physical factors on pigment and biomass production was studied using potato dextrose broth as culture media. The best optimal conditions were found to be with initial pH of 6.4, temperature of 24 °C, agitation speed of 164 rpm and fermentation time of 149 h gave 47.93 ± 0.58 mg /L of orange pigment, 196.28 ± 0.76 mg / L of red pigment and 12.58 ± 0.41 g /L of dry biomass. With the application of Plackett- Burman Design (PBD), 16 different media formulations were optimized using various carbon and nitrogen sources. When Sucrose and Yeast extract was used as a basal medium at 24° C, high pigment yield was observed: 695.93 ± 0.29 mg /L of orange pigment, 738.28 ± 0.51 mg / L of red pigment and 6.80 ± 0.37 g /L of dry biomass.Twelve different compounds were detected from the HPLC-PDA-ESI/MS analysis of intracellular and extracellular pigmented extracts. In particular, N-threonine-monascorubramine, N-glutaryl-rubropunctamine and PP-O were tentatively identified among these twelve compounds; further, this work reports for the first time on the PDA, MS and NMR characterization of the here named as N-GABA-monascorubramine derivative (6-[(Z)-2-Carboxyvinyl]-N-GABA-monascorubramine) pigment bearing a cis configuration at the C10-C11 double bond, in Talaromyces albobiverticillius 30548. Attempts were made to study the effects of sea salts on pigment synthesis; sustainable green extraction methods for pigments; upscaling of fermentation from shake flasks to laboratory fermenter. All these experiments with their results were discussed briefly as individual chapters. Overall, these findings bring out the potential of marine-derived red pigment producing fungi and its possibility of obtaining tailor made food colorants.