Consumers at the core of fermented food innovation

Published: Sep 24, 2025 by FME Lab

Yesterday on September 23rd, about 100 participants from academia, industry, NGOs and policy makers across Europe had joined the second Stakeholder Forum of Horizon Europe #DominoEU project. Four speakers Pr. Jutta Roosen from the Technical Universty of Munich, Dr. Emmanuella Magriplis associate professor from the Agricultural University of Athens, Dr. Michail Syrpas associate professor at Kaunas University of Technology in Lithuania and Dr. Nikoletta Vidra Science Manager at Yakult Europe altogether spotlighted the central role of consumer research in advancing the field of fermented foods.

It was also the first presentations of the research in this field conducted within #DominoEU project and #Pimento ca20128 that showed how consumers, across European areas, show various profiles towards fermented food consumption and their subjective/objective knowledge of microbes performing the fermentation process. The results also highlight various behavior of consumers towards healthy or sustainable goals when these are associated with fermented food. A special thanks to the speakers and to the participants for the fruitful discussion.

Consumers at the core of fermented food innovation

The French Gut at EMBL Human Microbiome Symposium 2025

The relationship between diet and the gut microbiome lies at the heart of both health and sustainability challenges. Understanding how dietary habits shape microbial diversity is key to developing new strategies for precision nutrition.

Focus on Microbial Ecology Modelling at the NEM days meeting in Rennes

The French NEM (Nutrition & Microbial Ecosystems) network hold its annual meeting this last two days (5th – 6th of May) in Rennes. Julien Tap, researcher from the FME lab presented the first results of his Ferment du Future SynthPlex project and how Engineering food microbial consortia can be performed using microfermentors to reveal strain epistasis. With the Support of Holoflux and Digit-Bio INRAE Metaprogram, He also co-organized with Guillaume Gautreau from the MaIAge Unit a specific workshop on modelling of microbial ecosystems.