Advances in the Use of Unconventional Raw Materials for Improving Quality and Safety Characteristics, Flavor Chemistry and Nutritional Value of Fermented Foods
A special issue of Foods (ISSN 2304-8158). This special issue belongs to the section "Food Microbiology".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 June 2025 | Viewed by 1378
Special Issue Editors
Interests: food microbiology; lactic acid bacteria; fermentation; functional foods; high-value foods development.
Interests: food fermentation; bioactive metabolites; prebiotics and probiotics; functional foods; antimicrobial activity
Interests: food bioactives; antioxidant activity; functional characterization; physiology of nutrition; cell and molecular physiology of phytocompounds
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The use of unconventional raw materials within food processing is becoming a widely used innovative and sustainable approach for developing food products with enhanced nutritional, organoleptic, technological, functional, and preservative features to satisfy increasing requests for a healthy diet. These alternative matrices can be subjected to microbial or enzymatic bioconversion to obtain food ingredients enriched in bioactive compounds or used in combination with the biotechnological process. At the same time, fermentation has been practiced for centuries to produce food, often using selected starters, such as lactic acid bacteria (LAB) and yeasts. Together, these substrates and processes provide several benefits to human health, product safety, and environmental and economic sustainability.
In this Special Issue, we invite submissions of cutting-edge research findings, as well as review papers that explore the use of unconventional matrices as food ingredients in combination with the fermentation process in food processing to bridge the gap in understanding about their potential in food improvement.
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:
- The valorization of non-conventional food matrices by enzymatic and microbial biotechnologies;
- Fermentation protocols for developing ingredients and foods with implemented nutritional/functional/organoleptic/technological features;
- The functional characterization of innovative products;
- The improvement of food safety concerning the reduction of toxic secondary metabolites, such as mycotoxins and biogenic amines;
- Sustainability;
- The nutrition and health benefits of fermented foods;
The ability of the food microbiome to ameliorate organoleptic properties (smell, texture, color, and taste) of traditional or innovative fermented foods
Dr. Mariaelena Di Biase
Dr. Francesca Valerio
Dr. Grazia Tamma
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. Foods is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly 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 2900 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
- fermentation
- unconventional plant matrices for fermentation
- lactic acid bacteria
- functional activity
- nutritional and safety quality
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