Fermented Dairy Products: From Artisanal Production to Functional Products and Beyond

Dear Colleagues,

Fermented dairy products have been a staple food commodity throughout recorded human history. Even before the discovery of microorganisms, humans had tamed fermentation and through its exploitation had been able to produce a wide range of dairy products. Through trial and error, a wealth of technical wisdom was generated that was passed through generations, reaching present times.

Over the last century, the microorganisms that drive dairy fermentation, the factors that affect their growth and persistence, along with the effect of their metabolic end products on human health, have been extensively assessed. In recent years, the development of techniques that are able to produce huge amount of data, allowed the exploration of understudied aspects of microbial subsistence, facilitating our understanding on the biotic and abiotic factors that direct the dairy products’ microcommunity development. In addition, several bioactive compounds generated through microbial metabolism that have a direct or indirect effect on human health, have been described. All these inevitably lead to the current trend of product customization. The capacity for product customization depends upon our ability to understand and effectively control microbial growth and metabolism. The early attempts in this direction provided very promising results, indicating that we are one step closer to the next target, which is personalized nutrition.

The aim of this Special Issue is to collect articles that improve our knowledge of fermented dairy products’ microecosystem development, the metabolism of related microorganisms, product design and evaluation of their safety and functional potential.

Dr. Spiros Paramithiotis
Dr. John Samelis
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Fermentation is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2100 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.