Food Foams: Where Do We Stand? Recent Advances and Emerging Applications

Foams play a critical role in a wide range of food products, contributing to texture, mouthfeel, visual appeal, and overall consumer perception. From whipped creams and mousses to bread and ice cream, foamed structures are essential in both traditional and innovative culinary creations. The stability and formation of these foams depend heavily on the presence of surfactants and proteins that reduce surface tension and stabilize air bubbles within the food matrix. Over recent years, the demand for healthier, sustainable, and plant-based alternatives has driven significant research into new ingredients and processing techniques that can create and maintain desirable foam properties. This evolving landscape of food science calls for a deeper understanding of the physicochemical principles underlying food foams and the development of novel approaches to optimize their structure, stability, and functionality in diverse food systems.



The central challenge addressed in this Research Topic is the formation and stabilization of gas bubbles in food systems, particularly under conditions that align with consumer-driven demands for clean-label, sustainable, and health-promoting products. Although foams offer functional benefits such as improved texture, visual appeal, and reduced calorie density, their practical application is hindered by the inherent instability of gas-in-liquid systems. Conventional stabilizers—low molecular weight surfactants and proteins—often fall short in preventing bubble coalescence and disproportionation, especially in foams with small bubble sizes. Pickering stabilization, using solid particles to irreversibly adsorb at interfaces, represents a promising alternative, yet remains limited by the availability of food-grade particles with the necessary wetting and adsorption characteristics.This Research Topic aims to highlight recent advances in foam formulation, including novel stabilizing agents, physical modification techniques, and processing innovations. By bridging fundamental colloid science with applied food technology, the goal is to explore strategies that enhance foamability and long-term foam stability while maintaining consumer acceptability. A deeper understanding of these mechanisms could pave the way for the development of next-generation food foams that are both functionally effective and aligned with modern dietary and sustainability trends.



This Research Topic welcomes contributions presenting new insights, novel developments, current challenges, latest discoveries, recent advances and future perspectives in the field of foams and bubbles for food applications with a combination of experimental, analytical and/or computational approaches. A range of article types including original research papers, reviews, mini-review, opinions and perspectives will be considered for this Research Topic.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Mini Review
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Review
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Mini Review
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Review
• Systematic Review

Keywords: foam, food, bubbles, surface tension, protein, edible oil, edible particle, fat, lipid, surfactant

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.