Beneficial Microorganisms for Food Manufacturing—Fermented and Biopreserved Foods and Beverages

Dear Colleagues,

Food fermentations are ancient technologies worldwide that harness microorganisms and their enzymes to improve and diversify the human diet. Fermented foods (vegetables, animal products, beverages) represent 10% to 40% of the world diet and represent a cultural and gastronomic heritage of high value. The exploration of the microbial communities of these fermented foods has a renewed interest with the development of metagenomic approaches. Fermentation, either indigenous, or after addition of starter cultures, brings many benefits: (1) enhanced food stability and storage, decreasing food losses, (2) enhanced food safety by the inhibition of pathogens, (3) improved sensorial properties, and (4) improved nutritional value. In many fermented products, the functions underlying all these aspects have to be considered. A better knowledge of microbes and fermentation at a molecular level is required to support and develop the production of sustainable fermented food with high nutritional characteristics. Investigating the role of starter cultures, as well as that of the indigenous microbiota participating to fermentation, revealed that: (1) they could guarantee the safety of the products by competing with undesired microorganisms or by producing organic acids and sometimes other molecules, such as H2O2 or bacteriocins, which have an antagonistic effect against undesired microorganisms. This safety aspect of the starter cultures also led to the proposal of their use in non-fermented products to ensure a better microbial safety, or to extend the shelf life of biopreserved food. Such starter cultures have become “protective cultures”, and their function is only to contribute to food safety, without interfering with the sensory aspects of the final product, whether fermented or not.

This Special Issue will publish papers on all aspects of fermented foods and beverages and also of biopreserved foods.

Dr. Régine Talon
Dr. Monique Zagorec
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 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. Microorganisms is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly 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 2700 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.