Valorization of Food Waste Using Solid-State Fermentation Technology
A special issue of Fermentation (ISSN 2311-5637). This special issue belongs to the section "Industrial Fermentation".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 29 July 2025 | Viewed by 940
Special Issue Editors
Interests: food fermentation; waste valorization; food biotechnology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: medicinal plants; biological activities; antimicrobial; antibiofilm; bioactive compounds
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
This Special Issue emphasizes the development of solid-state fermentation as an integrative process for the valorization of food waste generated throughout the food supply chain, pursuing the development of high-impact and valuable products. Food waste generation is a huge issue that is currently concerning people, scientists, industries and governmental sectors due to its associated negative environmental and economic impact. Food waste is accumulated daily throughout the entire food supply chain, occurring during production (damaged food), post-harvest (non-compliant food), distribution (bruised food), processing (bagasse, peels, seeds), retailers (food remnants, offcuts) and final consumers (kitchen leftovers, rotten food). Interestingly, this waste still possesses substantial nutritional richness, most notably in carbohydrates, insoluble and soluble fibre (cellulose, hemicellulose, pectin and lignin), lipids and protein content, as well as having a small concentration of minerals and bioactive compounds such as phenolics and carotenoids. Such richness and also the high availability of waste can be exploited in order to obtain different multi-purpose products through the application of a bioprocess carried out by microorganisms called solid-state fermentation, in which the microorganism can naturally grow and use the lignocellulosic waste as a carbon source. Among the value-added derived products obtained from the fermentation process are single cell proteins for animal feed, catalytic enzymes with high specificity and activity, simple sugars that can be directed to bioethanol production and oligosaccharides for the formulation of prebiotic ingredients that could also lead to a release/accumulation of natural antioxidant and antimicrobials agents of phenolic and carotenoid nature. This issue, focusing on the fermentative process for food waste valorization, will include multidisciplinary areas comprising biotechnology, food science and technology and food chemistry and engineering. We invite research articles that cover an ample scope of lignocellulosic food waste from the processing of any type of crop, including cereals, vegetables and fruit, as well as plants and trees, which are applied as a support source for microbial development. All types of articles related with the fermentation process, including original research, opinions and reviews, are welcome.
Prof. Dr. Cristóbal Noé Aguilar González
Dr. María L. Flores-López
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 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
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.
Keywords
- food waste valorization
- circular bioeconomy
- biotechnological processes
- integrative bioprocess
- solid state fermentation
- dark fermentation
- microbial growth
- lignocellulosic enzyme production
- bioactive compounds releasement
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