Microbial resources, innovation and fermented foods: echoes from PIMENTO COST Action and different Italian NRRP project activities

Fermented foods and beverages represent an important part of the gastronomic heritage, about one-third of human diet, but also a dynamic and constantly evolving sector, offering solutions to improve the well-being and nutrition of different population targets. Fermentation also makes it possible by promoting sustainable innovation and enhancing the quality of food and beverages. This family of microbial-based bioprocesses combine traditional knowledge, food microbiology and food sciences, also concretising interesting models of study for ecology, biodiversity and biological sciences. PIMENTO COST Action CA20128 is a pan-European transdisciplinary community that works to i) study the diversity of European fermented products, ii) create an original synthesis in the definition of the benefits and risks associated with these product categories, and iii) analyse the dynamics of innovation in the field. Here, we report the recent advances of the PIMENTO project, underlying how the selected activities from a constellation of Italian National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) projects financed by the European Commission's Next Generation EU programme contribute to shape new trajectories in research activities in the field, particularly about: a) food microbiomes preservation (SUS-MIRRI.IT); b) fermented products in marginal areas (AGRITECH); c) fermentation for sustainable food systems (ONFOODS); d) sensors to promote and speed up innovation in the sector (iNEST).