Fermented Foods and Beverages in “The New Genetic Era”

Dear Colleagues,

Fermentation has, for a long time, been considered a good method to extend the shelf life of highly-perishable foodstuffs. Although many fermented products are produced in high amounts at the industrial scale, there are a number of lesser-known fermented foods with recipes that are transmitted as a cultural heritage, especially among rural populations around the world, and that are still produced in an artisanal way.

The fermentation process is driven by microorganisms that naturally colonize raw materials. The peculiar sensory and textural traits of fermented foods are due to the composition, dynamics, and metabolisms of the microbial populations responsible for the biochemical and physicochemical transformations occurring during the fermentation and ripening processes. Although many studies in the last few years have been conducted to identify, characterize and understand the key metabolic pathways used by bacteria to live in food ecosystems, this topic still represents a growing area of interest with respect to the genomics and molecular biology of microbial food fermentations.

Developing molecular tools and, more recently, next-generation sequencing technologies has helped us to better understand the mechanisms by which these microorganisms adapt to specific environment. In addition, the genetic insights of bacteria isolated from fermented foods represent a resource of biodiversity and evolution.

In this Special Issue, we aim to publish review and original research papers that address molecular tools, population genetic and taxonomy or functional genomic methods that highlight innovative knowledge in the field of ancient and new fermented foods and beverages.

Prof. Pier Sandro Cocconcelli
Dr. Graciela M. Vignolo
Dr. Cecilia Fontana
Dr. Daniela Bassi
Guest Editors

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• Fermented Foods and Beverages
• Microbial populations
• Molecular techniques
• Functional genomics
• Bacterial genome
• Next generation sequencing