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Final Meeting of the GourMed PRIMA Project: Governance of the...
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Final Meeting of the GourMed PRIMA Project: Governance of the Food Supply Chain to Equilibrate Prices and Profits of High-Quality and Safe Mediterranean Foods

A special issue of Foods (ISSN 2304-8158).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (25 February 2025) | Viewed by 2678

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Lorenzo Nissen

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Agricultural and Food Sciences, Alma Mater Studiorum—University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
Interests: food microbiology; food fermentation; gut microbiota; in vitro intestinal model; metabolomics; microbiomics; hemp; gluten-free; Bifidobacterium: qPCR; colon microbiota
Dr. Andrea Gianotti

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Agricultural and Food Sciences (DISTAL), Alma Mater Studiorum—University of Bologna, Piazza Goidanich 60, 47521 Cesena, Italy
Interests: fermented foods; microbial metabolites; functional foods
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Anagnostis Argiriou

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Food Science and Nutrition, University of the Aegean, Myrina, Lemnos, Greece
Interests: genomics; metagenomics; precision nutrition; gut microbiota; food systems; sustainability

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Recent results from the GourMed project will be presented at the project’s final meeting to be held in Rimini on the 9th of September 2024. This project was created to provide support and ensure the effective governance of the Mediterranean food supply chain, balancing prices and profits while maintaining safety and quality. This project aimed to help people understand value creation and distribution in food chains involving small actors, developing a multi-actor strategy to enhance the competitiveness of Mediterranean agri-food chains. GourMed also aimed to implement real-life pilot projects to assess impacts and validate results, providing guidelines for the development of sustainable agri-food chains in the region. The research works collected cover the valorization of Mediterranean products obtained from small and fair producers, the food chains of cereals, tomatoes, carob syrups, and others, considering different aspects, such as nutrition, biochemistry, microbiology, traceability, and fairness and sustainability assessments.

Dr. Lorenzo Nissen
Dr. Andrea Gianotti
Prof. Dr. Anagnostis Argiriou
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

  • lifecycle assessment
  • fairness in the food chain
  • microbiological quality
  • food functionality
  • DNA barcoding

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

15 pages, 2771 KiB  
Article
Carob Syrup: Prebiotic Potential of a Neglected Functional Beverage of Mediterranean Countries
by Lorenzo Nissen, Davide Addazii, Flavia Casciano, Francesca Danesi, Maria Teresa Rodriguez-Estrada, Dario Mercatante, Siwar Ben Ayache, Achour Lotfi, Anagnostis Argiriou, Georgia Ayfantopoulou and Andrea Gianotti
Foods 2024, 13(24), 4172; https://doi.org/10.3390/foods13244172 - 23 Dec 2024
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1168
Abstract
Carob syrup, a traditional Mediterranean functional beverage obtained from Ceratonia siliqua (L.) pods, has been historically valued for its nutritional properties but is currently underutilized. This study compared the prebiotic potential of three handmade carob syrups produced by Tunisian women with commercial benchmarks [...] Read more.
Carob syrup, a traditional Mediterranean functional beverage obtained from Ceratonia siliqua (L.) pods, has been historically valued for its nutritional properties but is currently underutilized. This study compared the prebiotic potential of three handmade carob syrups produced by Tunisian women with commercial benchmarks from Italy, Greece and Cyprus. The prebiotic activity was evaluated by prebiotic scores, bifidogenic activity and volatilome characterization (SPME GC/MS) together with physicochemical and nutritional parameters. The results showed that Tunisian handmade products exhibited lower growth of pathogenic Escherichia coli compared to commercial samples. The prebiotic activity, tested against probiotic lactobacilli and bifidobacteria mixtures, showed a hierarchy of efficacy: fructo-oligosaccharides (FOSs) > Tunisian handmade products > Greek and Cypriot benchmarks > Italian benchmark. Volatilome analysis revealed about 40 compounds, mainly organic acids and aldehydes, with higher concentrations in handmade products. Positive correlations were found between prebiotic activity and short-chain fatty acids and n-hexadecanoic acid, while furfural showed negative correlations. The Tunisian artisanal products showed a higher prebiotic potential compared to the commercial counterparts, due to their higher content and diversity of organic acids. However, the presence of furfural in Tunisian products needs to be monitored due to potential toxicity concerns. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Final Meeting of the GourMed PRIMA Project: Governance of the Food Supply Chain to Equilibrate Prices and Profits of High-Quality and Safe Mediterranean Foods)
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18 pages, 896 KiB  
Article
Fairness and Contractual Performance in Vertical Linkages Within an Uncertain Environment: A Case of a Tomato Value Chain
by Amine M. Benmehaia, Antonella Samoggia, Oualid Benharrat, Salah Eddine Benziouche and Georgia Ayfantopoulou
Foods 2024, 13(23), 3819; https://doi.org/10.3390/foods13233819 - 27 Nov 2024
Viewed by 1048
Abstract
In developing countries with uncertain institutional environments, ensuring fairness in contractual arrangements within food value chains is crucial to overcome modern challenges. This paper empirically investigates the vertical relationship between tomato growers and canneries in Algerian agriculture to assess the determinants of contractual [...] Read more.
In developing countries with uncertain institutional environments, ensuring fairness in contractual arrangements within food value chains is crucial to overcome modern challenges. This paper empirically investigates the vertical relationship between tomato growers and canneries in Algerian agriculture to assess the determinants of contractual performances and price fairness implications. The study is based on an analysis of a comprehensive dataset of 9127 tomato growers engaged in contract farming over four years (2018–2021). Three regression methods were estimated, namely logit, tobit, and quantile regressions, alongside exploratory analysis. The main findings shed light on the factors influencing contractual performance among contracting producers, primarily farm scale and distance from the contracting processor. Additionally, the findings highlight the key role of contract enforcement mechanisms in influencing the contractual performances of tomato growers. Several recommendations are made to incentivize tomato growers and improve overall contractual performance within such public policy settings. Contract arrangements, including fair price negotiation and the requirement for tomato processing firms to make specific investments, are advocated to foster self-enforcement and significantly enhance the growers’ contractual performance. This is particularly important in many developing countries where the business environment is characterized by an absence of effective public enforcement institutions along with a highly uncertain environment. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Final Meeting of the GourMed PRIMA Project: Governance of the Food Supply Chain to Equilibrate Prices and Profits of High-Quality and Safe Mediterranean Foods)
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