In view of the huge application potential of gluconic acid and its derivatives, this manuscript critically reviews literature of the last thirty years on evolution of production processes of this important organic acid for the purpose of directing further research towards process intensification for innovative green processes.Fermentative process and catalytic oxidation are found to be the two basic approaches in production of gluconic acid.In both the approaches, downstream purification involves several steps such as centrifugation, carbon adsorption, evaporation, crystallization and ion-exchange.