Unlocking Underutilized Plant Resources: New Pathways for Innovative Food Ingredients

The growing demand for diversified, nutritious, and sustainable food systems has increased interest in plant resources that remain underexplored or insufficiently utilized. Traditional and neglected crops, fruits, seeds, legumes, tubers, and other plant-derived resources may offer valuable nutritional, technological, sensory, and functional properties, representing an important yet largely untapped source of innovation for the food sector.The central scientific question is: how can underexplored, regionally neglected, or commercially marginal plant resources be characterized and processed to unlock their potential as innovative food ingredients?To keep the collection coherent and distinct, the underutilized plant resource itself must be the central object of study. We invite contributions that center on a plant species, variety, or plant part that is scientifically underexplored, regionally neglected, or commercially marginal. Studies focused on established crops or on agro-industrial byproduct and waste streams fall outside the scope.We welcome contributions across the pathway from resource characterization to ingredient development and food application, including nutritional composition, techno-functional properties, processing performance, stability, sensory attributes, and interactions with food matrices. Research on sustainable processing and emerging technologies, including green extraction, fractionation, fermentation, stabilization, and encapsulation, is welcome when applied to developing novel or improved ingredients from these underutilized resources. Studies addressing bioaccessibility, safety, sustainability, and the application of the resulting ingredients in food systems are also encouraged.Themes of interest include, but are not limited to:• Nutritional and phytochemical characterization of underexplored or neglected plant resources• Techno-functional and sensory properties of underutilized plant-derived materials• Green extraction, fractionation, and stabilization technologies applied to underutilized resources• Fermentation and encapsulation strategies for ingredient development from underexplored plant sources• Processing performance and food matrix interactions of ingredients derived from underutilized resources• Bioaccessibility, safety, and sustainability of ingredients from underutilized plant resources• Scalability, market potential, and commercial feasibility of underutilized plant resources as food ingredients Topic editors: María Hernández-Carrión, Isabel Hernando, César Ozuna Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/86119/unlocking-underutilized-plant-resources-new-pathways-for-innovative-food-ingredients