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Impact factor: 5.1*

Time to first decision (all decisions): 5.0 days**

Time to first decision (peer reviewed only): 47.0 days***

Editor-in-Chief: Christine Morand

Indexed/Abstracted in British Library, CAS, MEDLINE/PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science/Science Citation Index-Expanded

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Meet the team

Journal scope

Food & Function provides a unique venue for physicists, chemists, biochemists, nutritionists and other food scientists to publish novel, cutting-edge, original research focussing on food, its nutrients and their relation to human health and nutrition.

We welcome research describing the:

  • Physical properties and structure of food and how this relates to sensory perception and human health
  • Biochemical and physiological actions of food components
  • Interactions between foods, gut microbiota and human physiology
  • Nutritional and biological evaluation of food
  • Clinical and population studies using food or food components
  • Development of biomarkers of food intake and effects on human health

Food in this context is defined as materials of plant, animal or mineral origin, which are consumed orally (by humans) for pleasure and to sustain growth and vital processes.

Examples of research topics that are of interest to be published in Food & Function are:

  • Chemistry and physics of food components and digestion processes
  • Relationship between the physical properties/structure of food and nutrition and human health - for example, impact of food matrix or processing on nutrient release and uptake
  • Molecular properties and physiological effects of food components (nutrients, fibres, essential micronutrients, phytochemicals, bioactives, food substitutes, novel ingredients, allergens, flavours and fragrances)
  • Nutritional and health effects of food including bioavailability and metabolism assessment of food components (nutrients, micronutrients and other microconstituents)
  • Efficacy and mechanisms of food constituents in the body - including biomarkers of intakes, exposure and effects
  • Impacts of foods/food components on gut microorganisms and human physiology - For example impact of fermented foods
  • Role of nutrition and diet in human disease prevention and development
  • Cellular and molecular effects/mechanisms of food/food components

The following types of research are not within the scope of Food & Function:

  • Research relating to traditional herbal medicines, medicinal plants or active compounds extracted from such plants (materials that are primarily consumed as medicine, i.e. the intended purpose is primarily to treat, cure or prevent a non-deficiency disease) or relating to foods not recognised as human diet contributors
  • Meta-analysis papers based on the NHANES (or similar) data sets
  • Animal nutrition research that is not primarily designed as a model to benefit human nutrition (for example, studies of growth/accretion, heat stress, weaning, ruminant digestion, meat quality, etc.)
  • Treatments administered by non-oral routes such as injection (subcutaneous, intramuscular, intraperitoneal, etc.), dermal/transdermal, rectal, inhalation, nasal, etc. Exceptions are when such routes of administration are used for mechanistic/control purposes in the experimental design
  • Pharmacological/pharmaceutical approaches: Encapsulation, emulsification and/or pure controlled release of compounds or bioactives that do not come directly from edible foods, such as dietary supplements - these are better suited to a pharmaceutical journal
  • In vitro or in vivo studies with poorly defined (insufficiently characterised) extracts and studies without appropriate controls will not be considered
  • Cells studies not considering the metabolism of food components ingested – for example, irrelevant exposure of cells to compounds not present in the body after absorption
  • Manuscripts with only a fully theoretical/bioinformatic approach and without appropriate support from analytical evidence will not be considered for publication
  • Studies focussing solely on food engineering, preservation and sustainable technologies or studies using non-edible waste byproducts of foods and food processing – these can be published in our companion journal Sustainable Food Technology
  • Pure food analysis - these can be published in Analytical Methods

Meet the team

Find out who is on the editorial and advisory boards for the Food & Function journal.

Article types

Food & Function publishes:

  • Communications
  • Full papers
  • Reviews
  • Comments
See more information about these article types

Communications

These must report preliminary research findings that are highly original, of immediate interest and are likely to have a high impact. Communications are given priority treatment, are fast-tracked through the publication process and appear prominently at the front of the journal in a dedicated Communications section.

Authors should provide at the time of submission a short paragraph explaining why their work justifies urgent publication as a Communication. Ideally, a Full paper in Food & Function should follow each Communication.

Full papers

These must describe science that will be of benefit to the community and are judged according to originality, quality of scientific content and contribution to existing knowledge.

Although there is no page limit for Full papers, appropriateness of length to content of new science will be taken into consideration.

Reviews

Reviews must be high-quality and authoritative accounts of the selected research field. They should be timely and add to the existing literature, rather than duplicate existing articles, and should be of interest to the journal's readership. Food & Function has no specific formatting guidelines and leaves the number of pages/figures/references at the author’s discretion. We recommend that systematic reviews and meta-analyses should follow the PRISMA guidelines for the transparent reporting of these studies.

Comments

Comments and Replies are a medium for the discussion and exchange of scientific opinions between authors and readers concerning material published in Food & Function.

For publication, a Comment should present an alternative analysis of and/or a new insight into the previously published material. Any Reply should further the discussion presented in the original article and the Comment. Comments and Replies that contain any form of personal attack are not suitable for publication. 

Comments that are acceptable for publication will be forwarded to the authors of the work being discussed, and these authors will be given the opportunity to submit a Reply. The Comment and Reply will both be subject to rigorous peer review in consultation with the journal’s Editorial Board where appropriate. The Comment and Reply will be published together.

Journal specific guidelines

The following guidelines are journal specific. For general guidance on preparing an article please visit our Prepare your article and Resources for authors pages, the content of which is relevant to all of our journals.

All submitted papers must include a cover letter that should specify the novelty of the work and give a justification for the publication of the paper. Please note that articles cannot be peer reviewed without this cover letter.

The following guidelines outline the formatting requirements for all manuscripts submitted to Food & Function. They are mandatory for all primary research articles (Communications and Papers). Please note that all submitted manuscripts are checked prior to being assigned to an Associate Editor and the Editorial Office may contact you to request revisions if these guidelines have not been followed.

Other requirements and recommendations:

  • A hypothesis or scientific aim should be included in the introduction
  • All clinical trials should have a registration number on a trial registry
  • All human studies must have IRB or equivalent approval number explicitly stated
  • All vertebrate animal studies must have IACUC or equivalent approval number explicitly stated
  • The physiological relevance of food, extract, compound and/or microbe doses used in animal and cell studies must be clearly demonstrated:
    • Rationale for dose selection must be clearly stated. Basing doses on previous papers, efficacy (in vitro or in vivo) and/or lack of toxicity (in vivo or in vitro) is in pilot or published studies is complementary to, but not a replacement for, physiological relevance to doses obtained in humans from reasonable amounts of food sources
    • Conversion to human equivalence doses is required for research using animal models, along with and estimation of the amount of a common food source that would be required to achieve the human equivalent dose.
    • Justification of compound concentrations is recommended for cell culture studies in relationship to feasible physiological concentrations that can be achieved in vivo following consumption of typical doses in food form.
    • Brief explanation of methods/calculations used to determine the values required above is required
  • Proper statistical methods must be employed (for example, 2-factor designs should use 2-way ANOVA)
  • Systematic reviews and meta-analyses should follow PRISMA guidelines

Studies involving extracts

Manuscripts submitted to Food & Function without a characterisation of extracts will not be considered for publication. It is essential to present information on the chemical characterisation of the extracts with a specific focus on the bioactive constituents hypothesised to be responsible for the activities investigated. The technique(s) used to determine the chemical composition of the extracts should be clearly stated.

Preparing your article for submission

Organisation of material for Communications & Full papers

Title

An article should have a short, straightforward title directed at the general reader. Lengthy systematic names and complicated and numerous chemical formulae should therefore be avoided where possible. Overstating a potential health action without direct proof of such action is discouraged, for example, 'anticancer effect of...' when only cell decreased growth is determined in a cell in culture.

Author names

Full names for all the authors of an article should be given. Only those who have contributed significantly to the research should be listed as authors.

Abstract

Every paper must be accompanied by a summary (50–250 words) setting out briefly and clearly the main objectives and results of the work; it should give the reader a clear idea of what has been achieved.

Please also include a graphical abstract with your submission. This entry should include a colour image (no larger than 8 cm wide and 4 cm high), and 20–30 words of text that highlight the novel aspects of your work.

Introduction

This should give clearly and briefly, with relevant references, both the nature of the problem under investigation and its background.

Materials & methods

Descriptions of methods and/or experiments should be given in detail sufficient to enable repetition of the work reported. It should be clearly indicated and properly described if the study is related with food or food-based matrices.

Results*

Only relevant results should be presented and figures, tables, and equations should be used for purposes of clarity and brevity.

Discussion*

The results should be presented first, followed by a discussion of their significance. The Discussion should not summarise information already present in the results but relate the results to previous knowledge in the subject. Plans for relevant future work can also be briefly included.

It is expected the authors finish this section with conclusions, including a broad interpretation of the key results and highlighting the novelty and significance of the work. This section can be separated from the 'Discussion' section using a separate 'Conclusions' sub-heading at the author’s discretion.

* Authors have the option of combining both these sections into a 'Results & discussion' section and/or including their conclusions as a separate 'Conclusions' section if they prefer. 

Conflict of interest

All manuscripts submitted to Food & Function must include a conflict interest statement in order to be considered for publication in the journal. This statement should highlight any potential conflicts of interest, be they financial, personal or otherwise, which authors consider relevant to disclose to the readers of the published work. This statement should be placed at the end of the manuscript under the sub-heading 'Conflicts of interest' before the references list. If no conflicts of interest are present, please state that 'There are no conflicts of interest to declare' under the heading.

Further guidelines from the Royal Society of Chemistry about conflicts of interest

Acknowledgements

Contributors (that are not included as co-authors) may be acknowledged; they should be as brief as possible. All sources of funding should be declared.

Abbreviations (optional)

Authors may also wish to include a list of abbreviations used in the manuscript although this is not mandatory.

Bibliographic references

These should be listed at the end of the manuscript in numerical order as they appear in the manuscript.Bibliographic details should be cited in the order: year, volume, page, and must include the article title. For example: C. Pereira, L. Barros, A. M. Carvalho, C. Santos-Buelga, I. C. F. R. Ferreira, Infusions of artichoke and milk thistle represent a good source of phenolic acids and flavonoids, Food Funct., 2015, 6, 55. 

Endnote style files

Figures & schemes

Preparation of graphics

Artwork should be submitted at its final size so that reduction is not required. The appearance of graphics is the responsibility of the author.

  • Graphics should fit within either single column (8.3 cm) or double column (17.1 cm) width, and must be no longer than 23.3 cm.
  • Graphical abstracts should be no larger than 8 x 4 cm.
  • Schemes and structures should be drawn to make best use of single and double column widths
  • Axes titles and other text should legible in the final size of the artwork
Colour figures

Colour figure reproduction is provided free of charge online.

Open access publishing options

Food & Function is a hybrid journal and gives authors the choice of publishing their research either via the traditional subscription-based model or instead by choosing our gold open access option.

Gold open access

For authors who want to publish their article gold open access, Food & Function charges an article processing charge (APC) of £3,000 (+ any applicable tax). Our APC is all-inclusive and makes your article freely available online immediately, permanently, and includes your choice of Creative Commons licence (CC BY or CC BY-NC) at no extra cost. It is not a submission charge, so you only pay if your article is accepted for publication.

Learn more about publishing open access.

Open access agreements

If your institution has an RSC open access agreement or APCs for gold open access, publishing in this journal may already be covered.

Use our journal finder to check if your institution has an open access agreement with us.

Please use your official institutional email address to submit your manuscript and check you are assigned as the corresponding author; this helps us to identify if you are eligible under an open access agreement or other APC discounts.

Traditional subscription model

Authors can also publish in Food & Function via the traditional subscription model without needing to pay an APC. Articles published via this route are available to institutions and individuals who subscribe to the journal. Our standard licence allows you to make the accepted manuscript of your article freely available after a 12-month embargo period. This is known as the green route to open access.

Learn more about green open access.

Readership information

Highly multidisciplinary, the journal brings together different communities working in food related research across academia, industry and government including the following.

  • Food scientists
  • Food technologists
  • Food chemists
  • Food physicists
  • Food biochemists
  • Nutritionists
  • Nutritional chemists
  • Analytical, pharmaceutical and material scientists
  • Physical chemists
  • Organic/synthetic chemists
  • Microbiologists

Subscription information

Food & Function is part of the RSC Gold subscription package.

Online only 2025: ISSN 2042-650X £2,921 / $5,032

*2023 Journal Citation Reports (Clarivate Analytics, 2024)

**The median time from submission to first decision including manuscripts rejected without peer review from the previous calendar year

***The median time from submission to first decision for peer-reviewed manuscripts from the previous calendar year

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Contact us

Pre-submission queries please contact Philippa Ross, Executive Editor
Email:
Send us an email

Post-submission queries please contact Rebecca Garton, Editorial Manager
Email:
Send us an email

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