Trends in Food Science & Technology最新文献

{"title":"A review of tree nut allergens and their processing for decreasing allergenicity","authors":"Haochen Ye ,&nbsp;Tanying Zhang ,&nbsp;Siyu Ren ,&nbsp;Jingwei Jiang ,&nbsp;Zeyu Peng ,&nbsp;Jia Cao ,&nbsp;Jinshen Chu ,&nbsp;Bowen Li ,&nbsp;Haozhe Yi ,&nbsp;Binjia Zhang ,&nbsp;Huan Wang ,&nbsp;Xiaowen Pi","doi":"10.1016/j.tifs.2026.105571","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tifs.2026.105571","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Background</h3><div>Tree nuts are common nutritional foods in daily life, but are also major allergenic foods, seriously affecting human health. Tree nut allergies are associated with allergens and epitopes. Thus, it is urgent to identify tree nut allergens and their epitopes, and to develop strategies to reduce allergenicity.</div></div><div><h3>Scope and approach</h3><div>The review summarizes the allergen composition, characteristics, and epitopes of ten types of tree nuts, especially almond, walnut, hazelnut, pecan and cashew. The impact of processing techniques on tree nut allergenicity is discussed. Future perspectives on addressing tree nut allergies are also provided.</div></div><div><h3>Key findings and conclusions</h3><div>Tree nut allergenicity is primarily determined by the properties, conformation, and epitopes of major allergens such as Pru du 6 for almond, Cor a 1, Cor a 8, Cor a 9 for hazelnut, Jug r 1∼Jug r 4 for walnut, Ana o 1∼Ana o 3 for cashew, Car i 1 and Car i 4 for pecan. The reduction of allergenicity in tree nuts mainly focuses on the thermal processing such as baking, boiling and autoclaving. However, thermal processing can generate advanced glycation end products, enhancing allergenic potential and harmful byproducts affecting human health. Thus, nonthermal processing (e.g., high-pressure, ultrasonication, fermentation, polyphenol modification, glycation, enzymatic hydrolysis, irradiation) and combined technologies should be comprehensively investigated to decrease tree nut allergenicity in the future. The correlation between “processing-structure-epitope-allergenicity” needs to be further elucidated to investigate the mechanism for decreasing tree nut allergenicity. Allergenicity alteration should be further verified through animal and clinical trials.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":441,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Food Science & Technology","volume":"170 ","pages":"Article 105571"},"PeriodicalIF":15.4,"publicationDate":"2026-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146076198","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A systematic review and meta-analysis of recent advances: The efficacy of 24-epibrassinolide in preserving postharvest quality of fruit and vegetables","authors":"Xiaodong Fu ,&nbsp;Fujun Li ,&nbsp;Yanan Li,&nbsp;Xiaoan Li,&nbsp;Xinhua Zhang","doi":"10.1016/j.tifs.2026.105585","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tifs.2026.105585","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Background</h3><div>Postharvest deterioration of fruit and vegetables (FVs) causes substantial economic losses, resource waste, and food-safety risks. 24-Epibrassinolide (EBR), a highly bioactive polyhydroxylated steroidal natural phytohormone belonging to the brassinosteroid, has emerged as a promising agent to slow postharvest quality decline. However, its overall efficacy and cross-species regulatory mechanisms remain insufficiently integrated and quantified.</div></div><div><h3>Scope and approach</h3><div>To systematically evaluate the efficacy and physiological mechanisms of EBR in mitigating postharvest deterioration, we conducted a meta-analysis of 39 peer-reviewed studies published between 2020 and 2025. Data were synthesized to assess the overall effect sizes of EBR treatment on key quality parameters and to identify optimal treatment conditions through frequency-based analysis.</div></div><div><h3>Key findings and conclusion</h3><div>The meta-analysis revealed that EBR treatment significantly suppressed six quality indicators, with overall effect mean differences and 95 % CI as follows: total soluble solids: −0.87 [-1.06, −0.68], weight loss: −3.12 [-3.33, −2.92], chilling injury: −5.27 [-7.59, −2.94], electrolyte leakage: −10.44 [-11.10, −9.79], browning: −7.40 [-11.99, −2.82], and disease incidence: −15.29 [-16.63, −13.96]. These benefits are primarily associated with EBR-mediated modulation of antioxidant systems, defense responses, carbohydrate metabolism, and membrane lipid stability. Frequency-based optimization indicated that immersion in 0–5 μM EBR for 10 min followed by storage at 4–5 °C and 80–95 % RH constitutes the most effective treatment protocol applicable to most FVs. Collectively, these findings establish a scientific basis for the standardized application of EBR in postharvest management, offering a practical strategy to reduce losses, extend shelf life, and enhance the quality and safety of FVs.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":441,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Food Science & Technology","volume":"170 ","pages":"Article 105585"},"PeriodicalIF":15.4,"publicationDate":"2026-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146076197","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Harnessing the diversity of plant proteins for cultivated meat production: functional insights and emerging applications","authors":"Lingshan Su ,&nbsp;Dejian Huang ,&nbsp;Linzhi Jing","doi":"10.1016/j.tifs.2026.105586","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tifs.2026.105586","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Background</h3><div>With the global demand for sustainable and ethical food sources rising, cultivated meat (CM) has emerged as a promising strategy to meet these needs while reducing the environmental impact of conventional meat production. However, current CM technologies face challenges related to scalability, high production costs, and reliance on animal-derived components. Plant proteins have attracted considerable attention as alternative protein sources; however, their potential roles in CM systems remain largely unexplored.</div></div><div><h3>Scope and approach</h3><div>This review provides a comprehensive overview of the structural and physicochemical properties of diverse plant proteins and explores their multifunctional roles in CM development. We highlight recent technological advances and applications, focusing on their use as edible scaffolds, culture medium components, and product enhancers. In addition, we discuss bioprocessing strategies and techno-economic analysis (TEA) frameworks to assess how the integration of plant protein may impact industrial-scale CM production.</div></div><div><h3>Key findings and conclusions</h3><div>Engineering plant proteins into tailored scaffold architectures can be guided by their physicochemical properties via a range of fabrication technologies. Plant protein-based scaffolds show strong potential for scalability and cost-effectiveness in industrial-scale CM production when integrated with bioreactor systems, although this remains to be validated. Besides, plant proteins and their hydrolysates are emerging as effective culture medium supplements that promote cell growth and present significant opportunities to reduce production costs. Plant proteins also enhance the texture, flavor, and nutritional quality of CM products through downstream food processing. Overall, these multifunctional roles position plant proteins as versatile and sustainable building blocks for CM manufacturing.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":441,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Food Science & Technology","volume":"170 ","pages":"Article 105586"},"PeriodicalIF":15.4,"publicationDate":"2026-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146076175","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Advances in pH-Responsive controlled-release systems for antimicrobial active packaging in food preservation","authors":"Yuemei Zhang ,&nbsp;Hongru Liu ,&nbsp;Qiankun Wang ,&nbsp;Jinglin Zhang ,&nbsp;Chenxia Liu ,&nbsp;Chunfang Wang ,&nbsp;Lixin Lu ,&nbsp;Yongjin Qiao","doi":"10.1016/j.tifs.2026.105554","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tifs.2026.105554","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Background</h3><div>To address the global challenge of food waste, developing efficient antimicrobial packaging that can extend shelf life is essential. Food spoilage is often accompanied by specific pH changes, which provide a natural trigger for intelligent release. Compared with conventional systems, pH-responsive active packaging can recognize such pH variations during spoilage and achieve on-demand, efficient release of antimicrobial agents, thereby improving food safety and reducing waste.</div></div><div><h3>Scope and methods</h3><div>This review provides an overview of antimicrobial active packaging and controlled-release technologies, with a focus on recent advancements in pH-responsive systems. It highlights the controlled-release mechanisms, typical release models, and multi-stimuli synergistic effects, while also discussing the key challenges and future prospects related to food-dependent pH variability, release mechanisms, and material stability.</div></div><div><h3>Key findings and conclusions</h3><div>pH-responsive packaging regulates the release of active compounds through mechanisms such as chemical reactions, electrostatic interactions, and structural transformations. Multi-stimuli strategies, including pH/enzyme and pH/temperature responses, further enhance precision and environmental adaptability, while diffusion-, swelling-, and degradation-based models provide insight into release behavior. Nevertheless, challenges remain regarding biosafety, long-term stability, and large-scale application. Future research should focus on developing efficient, stable, and safe multi-responsive systems to promote practical applications in food preservation.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":441,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Food Science & Technology","volume":"170 ","pages":"Article 105554"},"PeriodicalIF":15.4,"publicationDate":"2026-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146185459","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"An emerging biorefinery of mycelial food products from sustainable feedstocks","authors":"Krishna Kalyani Sahoo,&nbsp;Shijin Hao,&nbsp;Jacqueline Marie Inacio Aquino,&nbsp;Ke Wang","doi":"10.1016/j.tifs.2026.105614","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tifs.2026.105614","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Background</h3><div>Fungi are an emerging, sustainable source for food and ingredients, offering a tangible solution to global food security challenges driven by population growth and climate change. Their ability to convert low-value, sustainable feedstocks into high-value, nutrient-rich mycoprotein and bioactive compounds positions them at the forefront of the circular bioeconomy.</div></div><div><h3>Scope and approach</h3><div>To understand how fungi can be leveraged for sustainable food production, this review provides a big picture of the emerging circular fungal biorefinery. It summarizes the current advances and challenges across the ‘feedstock-to-product’ bioprocessing pipeline, covering feedstock characterization and pretreatment from various waste streams, precision fermentation strategies including the modulation of bioprocess parameters, co-cultivation and genetic modification, and downstream processing for novel mycelial foods, from a technical perspective.</div></div><div><h3>Key findings and conclusions</h3><div>Diverse waste feedstocks from various sources including, agriculture and food processing are effectively valorized through tailored handling and pretreatment (<em>e.g.</em>, mechanical, thermal and biological). Successful fermentation is a multifactorial process where media composition, process parameters, and bioreactor design critically influence mycelial yield. Advanced strategies like co-cultivation and genetic engineering can substantially boost productivity. An integrated approach, combining innovative bioprocessing with advanced downstream technologies like high-moisture extrusion and 3D printing, is essential for creating next-generation, sustainable mycelial foods with enhanced nutritional and sensory properties.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":441,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Food Science & Technology","volume":"170 ","pages":"Article 105614"},"PeriodicalIF":15.4,"publicationDate":"2026-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146185480","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Knowledge graph and large language model synergy for food safety: Approaches and perspectives","authors":"Haoxin An ,&nbsp;Qingli Dong ,&nbsp;Agapi Doulgeraki ,&nbsp;George-John Nychas ,&nbsp;Ziwen Zhou ,&nbsp;Yangtai Liu","doi":"10.1016/j.tifs.2026.105592","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tifs.2026.105592","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The globalization of food supply chains and the proliferation of heterogeneous, multimodal data streams have increased the complexity of food safety management. Limited semantic reasoning capacity, poor data interoperability, and lagging or untimely hazard detection are increasingly constraining traditional governance frameworks, which rely on static databases and fragmented information flows. Knowledge graphs (KGs) provide structured, semantically linked representations of multi-source data, enabling cross-domain integration and causal inference. On the other hand, large language models (LLMs), excel at processing and generating natural language, allowing for automated extraction of safety-critical entities and relationships from unstructured sources. This review presents the latest advances in KG-LLM integration for food safety, highlighting their complementary roles in multimodal knowledge representation, dynamic knowledge fusion, trustworthy inference, and automated construction. Meanwhile, representative applications in expert knowledge mining, intelligent decision-support systems, and consumer-facing services are reviewed, demonstrating a shift from reactive, data-driven responses to proactive risk assessment. Predictably, cross-modal alignment, regulatory compliance, and ethical governance will provide theoretical support for building intelligent, efficient, and interpretable food safety supervision frameworks.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":441,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Food Science & Technology","volume":"170 ","pages":"Article 105592"},"PeriodicalIF":15.4,"publicationDate":"2026-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146076196","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Foodborne sialoglycoprotein in human Health: Source analysis, enrichment technologies, molecular mechanisms, and nutritional intervention","authors":"Fengyuan Xie ,&nbsp;Xiaochen Chang ,&nbsp;Qi Wang,&nbsp;Qiping Zhan,&nbsp;Peng Jin,&nbsp;Yonghua Zheng,&nbsp;Zhengguo Wu","doi":"10.1016/j.tifs.2026.105619","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tifs.2026.105619","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Background</h3><div>Sialoglycoprotein refers to glycoprotein with sialic acid residues at the end of their sugar chains, which plays a key role in biological processes such as immune response, pathogen recognition and infection, and in turn affecting processes such as inflammation and cancer development.</div></div><div><h3>Scope and approach</h3><div>To systematically explore the effects of sialoglycoprotein on human body, this article provides a comprehensive review of its research progress and applications. Firstly, the analysis began with the characteristics and development background of sialoglycoprotein, and then elaborated on different food sources of sialoglycoprotein, such as dairy products, eggs, bird's nests, fish. Further, a comparative analysis was conducted on the principles, advantages and disadvantages of the corresponding chemical and non-chemical extraction and enrichment methods. Subsequently, the research direction and progress of nutritional intervention with sialoglycoprotein in various diseases were analyzed, especially, sialoglycoprotein from fish roes and eggs (Gm-SGP, Ca-SGP, EYG) can regulate bone homeostasis and bone resorption, alleviating osteoporosis. At the end of the review, the application prospect, challenges and opportunities of sialoglycoprotein were summarized and analyzed.</div></div><div><h3>Key findings and conclusions</h3><div>Sialoglycoprotein has significant potential in regulating bone metabolism, immune responses, and cellular signaling pathways. However, its practical application faces key challenges, including structural degradation during extraction, incomplete mechanistic understanding, lack of long-term safety assessments, and limited biological sources. Therefore, this review provides a systematic analysis to establish a theoretical foundation and technical guidance for overcoming bottlenecks in the efficient production, mechanistic understanding, and safe utilization of sialoglycoprotein.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":441,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Food Science & Technology","volume":"170 ","pages":"Article 105619"},"PeriodicalIF":15.4,"publicationDate":"2026-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146185457","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Dietary fiber emulsifiers: Performance modulation, stabilization mechanisms, multiscale characterization, and emerging frontiers","authors":"Xueqing Li ,&nbsp;Yunlei Xianyu","doi":"10.1016/j.tifs.2026.105598","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tifs.2026.105598","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Background</h3><div>Large-scale plant-derived waste in the food supply chain poses global challenges while simultaneously constituting a sustainable source of dietary fiber (DF). Characterized by a complex composition, DF possesses diverse functionalproperties including interfacial activity, gelling capacity, hydration, and adsorption. These properties can impart distinctive emulsifying capabilities to DF relative to isolated constituents, thereby establishing a novel resource upcycling pathway.</div></div><div><h3>Scope and approach</h3><div>To elucidate emulsification mechanisms and explore emerging trends, this review investigates the relationship between the structural characteristics, physicochemical properties, and emulsifying performance of DF. The stabilization mechanisms and multiscale characterization techniques of DF emulsification are analyzed and summarized. The future trends of DF emulsifiers in 3D printing are elaborated including design principles of inks and utilization of machine learning.</div></div><div><h3>Key findings and conclusions</h3><div>This review establishes a cascade regulation framework linking structural characteristics, physicochemical properties, and emulsifying performance of DF. Insoluble and soluble components in DF synergistically stabilize emulsions through complementary mechanisms, encompassing interfacial adsorption and network formation. Multiscale characterization techniques across macro-, meso-, micro-, and molecular scales comprehensively quantify emulsification behaviors of DF, enabling precise design and evaluation of DF-based emulsions. Furthermore, DF emulsifiers for 3D printing are explored that enable formulation of printable emulsions via three strategies including enhancing droplet close-packing, inducing continuous phase gelation, and facilitating droplet aggregation-network formation. The pivotal role of machine learning in fiber property regulation, emulsion performance prediction, and printing parameter optimization is also emphasized, providing a theoretical framework for upcycling high-value plant waste toward intelligent manufacturing of personalized foods.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":441,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Food Science & Technology","volume":"170 ","pages":"Article 105598"},"PeriodicalIF":15.4,"publicationDate":"2026-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146185460","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"AI-driven vibrational spectroscopic methods for evaluating antioxidant activity in food systems","authors":"Rili Zha ,&nbsp;Fangchen Ding ,&nbsp;Julio Nogales-Bueno ,&nbsp;María José Jara-Palacios ,&nbsp;Berta Baca-Bocanegra ,&nbsp;Dolores Hernanz","doi":"10.1016/j.tifs.2026.105599","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tifs.2026.105599","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Background</h3><div>Food systems contain a wide array of bioactive compounds that exert beneficial effects on human health, among which antioxidant activity (AA) plays a pivotal role in mitigating oxidative stress-related disorders. Conventional analytical methods for evaluating AA are often labor-intensive, destructive and unsuitable for high-throughput or large-scale assessment, whereas AI-enhanced vibrational spectroscopy enables rapid, non-destructive, and sustainable evaluation of AA across diverse food matrices.</div></div><div><h3>Scope and approach</h3><div>This review systematically summarizes the principles, applications, and limitations of promising vibrational spectroscopic techniques, including near- and mid-infrared spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, and hyperspectral imaging, in recent applications for predicting AA in foods. Notably, advances in AI-enabled strategies integrating vibrational spectroscopy, hyperparameter optimization, explainable artificial intelligence, multimodal data fusion, and automated machine learning are leveraged to enhance the accuracy and reliability of AA assessment. Finally, this review outlines future directions toward large-scale and real-world AA sensing, emphasizing end-edge-cloud collaborative modeling, blockchain-enabled e-labeling, and portable smartphone spectrometers for consumer-level implementation.</div></div><div><h3>Key findings and conclusion</h3><div>The integration of vibrational spectroscopy with advanced AI techniques enables rapid, non-destructive, and scalable evaluation of AA in complex food systems, bridging the gap between laboratory analysis and real-world applications. Deep learning-based spectral optimization, data fusion, explainable artificial intelligence, and automated machine learning frameworks significantly enhance model robustness, interpretability, and automation. Looking ahead, end-edge-cloud collaboration, blockchain-enabled traceability, and portable smartphone-based spectrometers will underpin large-scale AA prediction in food systems, fostering AI-driven evaluation of food nutritional quality and functional value.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":441,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Food Science & Technology","volume":"170 ","pages":"Article 105599"},"PeriodicalIF":15.4,"publicationDate":"2026-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146185415","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Food-derived self-assembling peptide hydrogels: Mechanistic insights, food applications, and AI-driven future perspectives","authors":"Jiabao Cao ,&nbsp;Guangqi Fan ,&nbsp;Baoxin Lu ,&nbsp;Zhigang Xiao ,&nbsp;Guang Xin","doi":"10.1016/j.tifs.2026.105604","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tifs.2026.105604","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Background</h3><div>Self-assembling peptide-based hydrogels (SAPHs) are programmable soft-matter platforms for food systems. Sequence-encoded noncovalent interactions generate hydrated 3D networks, mechanical and transport properties of which are tuned by food-grade triggers (pH, ionic strength, temperature, shear). Thus, molecular design is linked to texture, bioactive delivery, and intelligent packaging, while conforming to safety and sustainability goals.</div></div><div><h3>Scope and approach</h3><div>By integrating physicochemical and systems perspectives, this review characterizes SAPH building blocks, describes assembly in food-relevant environments, and relates network structures to texture, delivery, and packaging functions. It also examines translation from model systems to real matrices, emphasizing AI-assisted design and process analytics for formulation, scale-up, and performance prediction.</div></div><div><h3><strong>Key findings and conclusions</strong></h3><div>SAPHs couple mechanical properties (G’, yielding, self-healing) with diffusion and controlled release to improve mouthfeel, stability, and sensing. However, their application is constrained by nonlinear assembly in complex systems, raw material and purification costs, batch-to-batch variability, limited safety assessment, and incomplete datasets that link composition, processing, structure, properties, and function. The proposed roadmap focuses on low-cost byproduct feedstocks, routes that avoid organic solvents and added crosslinkers, quality-by-design strategies, and computation-assisted screening to narrow sequence space and define operating windows. Thus, it facilitates programmable texture, stimulus-responsive delivery, and smart edible packaging.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":441,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Food Science & Technology","volume":"170 ","pages":"Article 105604"},"PeriodicalIF":15.4,"publicationDate":"2026-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146185416","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}