Dear Colleagues,

Humans have been developing the usage and preparation of fermented foods for millennia. In contemporary life, many fermented footstuffs are used commonly every day, such as bread, fermented dairy products, wine, beer, fermented sausages, and sauerkraut; however, many other foods and beverages are becoming popular, such as tempeh, kombucha, and kimchi. The scientific community is presently devoting increasing attention to fermented foods for their richness in prebiotics and their effectiveness in increasing wellness, improving nutrition, enhancing immune responses, and thus suppressing allergy and inflammation. However, although many studies characterise their composition and physico-chemical properties, the lack of standardisation in the production of some of these re-discovered foods inhibits the determination of general properties, properties that include their microbial compositions. The application of innovative technologies and meta-analyses can lead to the discovery of novel biomarkers to characterise the fermented foods’ quality and safety, which is an important step towards their compositional standardisation. From a regulatory perspective, worldwide compliance in the production of fermented foods is subject to food standard agencies and the Protected Designation of Origin, which requires producers to properly label foods’ geographical origins, type of fermenation cultures used, and quality properties. Sharing this knowledge with legislators and industry risk-management systems can improve the development of standardised risk assessments and novel legislation to protect certain peculiarities of fermented foods.

This Special Issue of Foods aims to collect original research articles and literature reviews to expand on knowledge in the field of the standardisation of fermented foods. We welcome colleagues to contribute with their knowledge and expertise on:

• Novel technologies to study the quality of fermented foods
• Safety, traceability, and authenticity of fermented foods
• Functional and biological properties of fermented foods
• Current statistical tools to manage OMICs data and predict fermented foods quality
• Meta-analyses and integromics (integrative studies) of omics data
• Biomarkers of fermented foods quality
• Regulatory Issues of fermented foods
• Predictive modelling of microbial behaviour in fermented foods

Dr. Simona Lucia Bavaro
Dr. Triona O'Brien
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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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.

• novel technologies
• food safety
• food quality
• traceability
• authenticity
• functional and biological properties
• bioaccessibility/bioavailability
• starter cultures
• predictive modelling of microbial behaviour in fermented foods
• statistical tools to manage omics data