Contaminants of Emerging Concern in Food Systems: Bridging Analytical Science, Health and Sustainability

Dear Colleagues,

Ensuring the safety and sustainability of global food systems represents one of the central challenges of contemporary public health and environmental governance. The increasing presence of contaminants of emerging concern (CECs)—including microplastics, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), pesticide transformation products, pharmaceuticals, endocrine disruptors, and novel process-induced toxicants—has revealed critical gaps in current monitoring frameworks and risk assessment paradigms.

This Special Issue aims to advance a comprehensive and integrative understanding of food contamination within the broader context of sustainability science. It focuses on cutting-edge analytical approaches, including high-resolution mass spectrometry, non-target and suspect screening, and multi-residue methodologies, alongside exposure science, toxicological evaluation, and cumulative risk assessment.

A key objective is to bridge traditionally fragmented domains—analytical chemistry, food safety, environmental health, and sustainability assessment—by promoting interdisciplinary contributions that link contamination pathways with ecological impacts, human health outcomes, and socio-economic consequences. Particular emphasis is placed on translating scientific evidence into policy-relevant knowledge, supporting regulatory frameworks, and enabling sustainable food production and supply chains.

By aligning with global sustainability priorities and advancing methodological innovation, this Special Issue seeks to complement and extend the existing literature, offering actionable insights for researchers, policymakers, and public health professionals engaged in safeguarding resilient and sustainable food systems.

Extended Scope and Purpose

This Special Issue addresses the urgent need to integrate contaminant analysis into the sustainability framework of food systems. While substantial progress has been made in identifying individual contaminants, there remains a significant gap in understanding cumulative exposures, mixture effects, and long-term ecological and health consequences.

The issue will particularly contribute to sustainability science by:

• Advancing methods for the detection and quantification of contaminants in complex food matrices;
• Improving the integration of exposure assessment with sustainability indicators;
• Linking environmental contamination (soil, water, and air) with food chain transfer and human health outcomes;
• Supporting evidence-based regulatory and policy development aligned with sustainable development goals (SDGs);
• Exploring mitigation strategies within sustainable agriculture, circular economy models, and green processing technologies.

This Special Issue will therefore serve as a platform for translating analytical data into sustainability-relevant metrics, contributing to the monitoring, evaluation, and governance of sustainable food systems.

Suggested Topics

• Detection and quantification of emerging contaminants in food;
• Microplastics and nanoplastics in the food chain;
• PFAS and persistent organic pollutants in food systems;
• Multi-residue and non-target analytical approaches;
• Food processing contaminants and neo-formed toxicants;
• Climate change and contaminant dynamics in food systems;
• Cumulative exposure and mixture toxicity;
• Risk assessment and regulatory frameworks;
• Sustainable mitigation strategies in food production;
• One Health and Planetary Health perspectives on food safety.

Prof. Jasna Bošnir
Prof. Aleksandar Racz
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. Sustainability 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.

• contaminants of emerging concern (CECs)
• food contamination
• microplastics
• PFAS
• food safety and sustainability
• analytical chemistry
• non-target screening
• risk assessment
• environmental exposure
• sustainable food systems