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.
About Action
Present in all European diets, fermented foods (FF) holds a strategic place due to the benefits they offer in terms of nutrition, sustainability, innovation, cultural heritage and consumer interest.
The long-term vision is to place Europe as the spearhead of fermented foods (FF), promoting health, sustainability, regional diversity, and innovation.
Fermented foods (FF) have played a key role in human diets for millennia. Historically, the main role of the fermentative microorganisms was to counteract the action of spoilage or pathogenic microorganisms
The work plan is structured into 5 Working Groups (WGs).
Structure
An operational and dynamic network of varied types of actors is the first key to fulfilling the objectives of the Action. For that purpose, WG1 will be in charge of building human connections, collective engagement of the objectives (common vision), improved relevance of the network coverage, and efficient tools for communication/co-working to maintain a dynamic beyond regular meetings.
The role of Fermented Foods (FF) in the diet of the participating COST members, from North to South and from East to West is enormously variable and has been shaped through centuries, by geographical, climate, historical, social and religious elements.
WG3 aims to answer the following questions: i) What is the most recent state-of-the-art in terms of scientific evidence of nutritional and health benefits conferred by FF? ii) How can safety aspects be integrated into risk/benefit analyses of FF? iii) How can research data on the health risks/benefits of FF be aligned with the consumption of FF across PIMENTO countries to foster the integration of fermented foods in nutritional public health strategies?
Fermentation is a sustainable process which does not require heavy equipment and is thus accessible to SMEs or local producers for innovation. The functional biodiversity of safe microorganisms characterised during the past decades represents a promising basis for products development and innovations in response to consumer’s expectations. WG4 will explore how to facilitate and foster these innovations for producers and society.
For the long-term impact of the Action, WG5 will support broad dissemination, training and events.
Join
News
The title of the open session is “PIMENTO meets industry: bottlenecks of innovation in fermented foods”.
In this session we will meet associations and industries active in the field of fermented foods in order to discuss what are the bottlenecks that limit the innovation in fermented foods.
The Core Group of the CA20128 – Promoting Innovation of ferMENTed fOods (PIMENTO) together with National Research Council (CNR) of Italy – Department of Biology,
PhD call at University of Foggia, including positions on “Biotechnology and Smart Practices for a sustainable Management of Natural Resources, Food and Agriculture”
Open Calls
May 2022 – October 2022
The deadline for applications is 30th April 2022
