Functional Dairy Products and Probiotics: Quality, Safety and Sustainability

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue centers on the critical intersection of functional dairy products and probiotics, with a core focus on quality assurance, food safety and sustainable production systems. As global consumer demand for gut-friendly, nutritionally enhanced dairy items continues to surge, the integration of viable probiotic strains into dairy matrices presents unprecedented opportunities alongside unaddressed technical and regulatory challenges.

This collection invites original research that explore strain stability during industrial processing, shelf-life extension mechanisms, validated health claim substantiation and hazard mitigation strategies for pathogen contamination in probiotic dairy chains. It also prioritizes studies on low-carbon manufacturing, circular economy frameworks utilizing dairy by-products and eco-friendly packaging solutions that reduce environmental footprints without compromising probiotic viability. By bridging laboratory innovation with industrial practice, this Special Issue aims to establish unified global benchmarks that support the responsible, safe and sustainable growth of the functional dairy sector for public health benefit. We encourage the submission of original high-quality research papers and comprehensive reviews related to the functional dairy products and probiotics.

Prof. Dr. Xianlong Zhang
Guest Editor

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-anonymized 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.