Microbes 4 Sustainable Foods
#Microbes4SustainableFoods: A cluster of European funded projects
DOMINO is a part of a group of EU funded projects under the name Microbes4SustainableFoods (M4SF). This cluster is made up of 5 projects: TRIBIOME, WHEATBIOME, HEALTHFERM and PIMENTO Cost Action. Together, these projects share a commitment to advance sustainable food systems, health and environmental resilience. To do so:
- They aim to unveil the health benefits of fermented foods and their influence on the human gut microbiome, offering the promise of nutritionally enhanced and microbiome-friendly dietary choices.
- They enhance the dual impact of human wellbeing and environmental sustainability.
- They aim to elevate Europe as a standing leader in microbial foods with regional diversity and local food production.
- They aim to show the potential of wheat microbiome’s potential by modulating soil-plant microbiomes and promoting circular economy processes, uniting the stakeholders along the entire food value chain.
Together, these projects have identified a joint mission statement and are joined together under the name Microbes4SustainableFoods. They will collaboratively produce outcomes such as joint dissemination activities, including workshops, events, online webinars and social media awareness campaigns.
Watch the video at the bottom of the page to learn more about the cluster!
| Project Name | Brief Description | Timeline | Website | Funding Programme |
| HealthFerm | HealthFerm has the ambition to enable an evidence-based transition in society and industry from traditional to sustainable plant-based fermented foods and diets that deliver health benefits to consumers by design. The project performs several human intervention studies to better understand the interaction between food fermentation microbiomes, fermented grain-based foods and the human gut microbiome and how they support human health. A community-science approach plays a vital part in collecting diverse food fermentation microbiomes used to design innovative fermented plant-based foods with optimal health benefits. | 01.09.2022 – 31.08.2026 | healthferm.eu/ | Horizon Europe |
| DOMINO | DOMINO will study the health impacts of a fermented food-based diet both on a healthy population and on adults suffering from metabolic syndrome. In a longitudinal human nutritional trial with milk kefir, researchers will study health biomarkers and establish if consumption of milk kefir leads to changes in the gut microbiome and the improvement of clinical outcomes. The project will demonstrate that innovative strategies to tackle sustainability and nutritional health can be developed through the reasoned design of new fermented food products. To this aim, six food case studies will be carried out, selected as representative of the wide diversity of plant-based fermented food prototypes. | 01.03.2023 – 28.02.2028 | domino-euproject.eu/ | Horizon Europe |
| PIMENTO | The long-term goal of PIMENTO is to place Europe at the spearhead of innovation on microbial foods, promoting health, regional diversity, local production at different scales, contributing to economical and societal development as well as food sovereignty. To respond to this challenge, the scientific and non-scientific community need to join forces and co-construct a multi-stakeholder vision and dynamic in the field of fermented foods. The PIMENTO project aims to collectively advance scientific evidence of fermented food health benefits, building a benefits/risk approach in order to promote multi-modal innovation and respond to the expectations of different European communities. | 01.11.2021- 31.10.2025 | https://fermentedfoods.eu/ | COST |
| WHEATBIOME | The WHEATBIOME project will contribute to the understanding of the role of the wheat microbiome on sustainable development. WHEATBIOME aims to unlock all the potential of wheat crops with strong collaboration between academia, industry, food system actors and governmental authorities. Sustainability in the food production and value chain is key, from many perspectives, including being able to feed an ever-growing number of people, maintaining soil and crops qualities, delivering healthy and nutritious products, protecting biodiversity and contributing to climate resilience of Europe. | 01.01.2023 – 31.12.2026 | wheatbiome-project.eu/ | Horizon Europe |
| TRIBIOME | The vision of TRIBIOME is to develop and implement a systemic solution to transform current food production systems. To this end, TRIBIOME aims to advance alignment with the Green Deal and Farm2fork strategies, by deepening the knowledge of soil/plant/animal and human microbiomes, as well as their interrelationships and interconnections, so that they can play a leading role in the resilience of food production systems in the near future. | 01.01.2023- 31.12.2026 | tribiome.eu/ | Horizon Europe |