Biopreservation Strategies for Sustainable Food Processing

Ensuring the safety and quality of food, while minimizing the use of chemical additives is an issue that food manufacturers must address to meet the current consumers’ demand for healthier and clean label products. In parallel, other challenges such as the emergence of antibiotic-resistant foodborne pathogens and the occurrence of many foodborne pathogen outbreaks in the last decades have stimulated research on alternative food preservation methods. Traditionally, physical, and chemical methods comprising thermal processing and non-thermal technologies have been extensively applied to increase food safety. However, these methods may alter the overall quality of foods in terms of nutritional and organoleptic characteristics, and/or the costs of implementation at the industrial level making them inviable.

Food preservation using microorganisms such as lactic acid bacteria and/or their metabolites including nisin and phenylacetic acid has been investigated as a more sustainable and viable alternative for traditionally applied physical and chemical methods for food processing. The antimicrobial effects of these bioprotective cultures and antimicrobial compounds against spoilage and pathogenic microorganisms in foods have been intensively explored over the last few years. In addition, the effects of biopreservation strategies on food quality have been also addressed. The findings of research on biopreservation methods may help the development and optimization of more sustainable and viable strategies for food safety and shelf-life extension.

The aim of this Research Topic is to compile information on the recent advances in the application of biopreservation strategies to increase food safety and quality, especially in fermented food products. Therefore, this Research Topic seeks original research, review, and opinion articles related to the application of novel biopreservation methods for improving food processing and extending food shelf-life. Potential topics include, but are not limited, to the following:

1) Assessment of bioprotective cultures and/or their metabolites against pathogenic microorganisms in foods.
2) Evaluation of the bioprotective effects resulted from the application of biopreservation strategies combined with other emerging clean label technologies, such as high-pressure processing, ultraviolet radiation, and sustainable active packaging systems in foods.
3) Novel approaches encompassing predictive modeling of the interactions between bioprotective cultures with pathogenic microorganisms in foods
4) Risk assessment approaches towards the use of biopreservation strategies to increase food safety.

Keywords: lactic acid bacteria, bacteriophages, antimicrobial activity, microbial inactivation, shelf-life, food safety, predictive microbiology, microbial interaction, fermented foods

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.