Green Extraction and Fermentation for Functional Whey Drinks

Whey is one of the largest side streams of dairy processing and still carries high nutritional value, including proteins, lactose, minerals, and naturally occurring bioactive fractions. Yet, its high organic load can create environmental burdens when it is not valorized. In parallel, fermented dairy beverages are gaining renewed attention as convenient carriers for nutrition-relevant compounds, driven by interest in gut health, protein quality, and “food as prevention.” At the same time, the 2023–2025 research landscape shows rapid growth in green extraction approaches that recover bioactives from plants and agri-food by-products using low-waste, low-toxicity methods and improved energy efficiency. This convergence creates a timely opportunity: pairing sustainably extracted bioactives with fermented whey drink matrices to develop functional beverages that are scalable, sensory-acceptable, and aligned with circular-economy and sustainability goals.

This Research Topic aims to bring together multidisciplinary research that clarifies how green-extracted bioactives can be selected, stabilized, and delivered through fermented whey drinks, and how fermentation and digestion influence their transformation, bioaccessibility, and nutrition-related functionality. Submissions should emphasize relevance to human nutrition, product feasibility, and robust methodology, enabling translation from lab concepts to real-world formulations.

Key themes of interest include:
• Green extraction and fractionation of bioactives from food by-products for beverage fortification in whey-based beverages
• Microbial fermentation effects on bioactives (bioconversion, binding, release) and postbiotic formation in fermented whey drinks
• Formulation and processing for stability, shelf-life, sensory quality, and clean-label design
• Bioaccessibility and gastrointestinal fate (in vitro digestion; microbiome-relevant endpoints) of bioactives delivered via whey-based beverages
• Scale-up, safety, regulatory considerations, and sustainability metrics for circular dairy systems

Article types and fees

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

• Brief Research Report
• Clinical Trial
• Conceptual Analysis
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• ... 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
• Clinical Trial
• Conceptual Analysis
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Policy and Practice Reviews
• Review
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: dairy processing, dairy variants, 'whey, fermented whey, fermented whey drink, whey valorization, dairy by-products, dairy side streams, circular economy, green extraction, bioactive compounds, functional beverages, food by-products, plant bioactives, gut health, bioaccessibility, clean label

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.