Dear Colleagues,

Thermal treatment has always been the processing method of choice for food treatment to make it safe for consumption and to extend its shelf-life. Over the past few years, non-thermal processing technologies have been gaining momentum and have been utilized, especially as technological advancements have made upscaling and continuous treatment possible. Additionally, non-thermal treatments are usually environmentally friendly and energy-efficient, and hence sustainable. On the other hand, several challenges exist: the initial cost of some non-thermal processes is high, microbial inactivation needs to be continuously assessed and verified, application to both solid and liquid foods is not always available, and some organoleptic characteristics might be affected, while legislation/regulation issues may arise. The combination of thermal and non-thermal processing methods that will produce safe foods with minimal effect on nutrients and quality characteristics, while improving the environmental/energy fingerprint, might be more plausible.

Contributions to this Special Issue may cover all research aspects related to the evaluation of the impact of emerging processing technologies and the synergistic effect of thermal and non-thermal methods to quality characteristics of dairy products.

Dr. Photis Papademas
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 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 2400 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.

• non-thermal processing
• dairy products
• safety
• organoleptic characteristics
• bioactivity
• energy-efficient
• sustainability