Often, our homemade recipes of fermented foods and drinks such as kombucha, kimchi, sauerkraut, and even traditional porridge, may turn out great in our kitchens. However, transforming these culturally rooted foods into safe, consistent, and market-ready products requires more than trial and error.
Fermentation is a natural process in which beneficial microorganisms transform food, enhancing its shelf life, safety, and nutritional value. By converting perishable foods into longer-lasting products, communities can ensure availability of food, access wider markets, and increase profitability.
To actualize these business ventures, experts are now calling for the integration of technology and engineering approaches in fermentation to improve food safety, reduce waste, and unlock economic opportunities for farmers and small-scale processors.
During the 2026 Winter School on Microbial Fermentation, held in Nairobi from April 13–14, and organized by Dr. Samuel Imathiu, JKUAT in collaboration with Università Cattolica (Italy), Prof. Cristina Silva of Universidade Católica Portuguesa emphasized the need to integrate engineering technologies into fermentation.
She noted that fermentation (one of the oldest and most affordable preservation methods) holds significant potential in reducing postharvest losses, particularly during periods of high agricultural production.
However, Prof. Silva noted that what distinguishes successful fermentation from spoilage, is the ability to control the process. Hence, estimating temperature and duration alone may not always guarantee consistent and reliable outcomes, especially in the face of challenges such as climate change.
Unpredictable weather due to climate change disrupts traditional, temperature-sensitive fermentation processes thus affecting the quality of the product and how long it can last. This spoilage leads to food waste, and in some instances food scarcity.
Across Africa, traditional fermentation systems are widely used for cereals, roots, tubers, and fish, producing well-known foods such as gari (a West African staple), palm wine, among others.
While these foods play important socio-economic roles, Prof. Silva observed that traditional methods are often difficult to standardize, making them vulnerable to contamination and inconsistent quality.
Without proper control, risks such as harmful pathogens, aflatoxins, and contaminants like salmonella or heavy metals may arise, alongside undesirable flavors and spoilage. These challenges not only threaten food safety but also limit market acceptability.
“To address this, it is imperative to move from simply observing fermentation to predicting and controlling it,” she noted, highlighting the importance of using scientific models to understand how fermentation behaves under different environmental conditions.
Prof. Silva pointed to the emergence of intelligent fermentation systems, which combine physical processes with digital tools to shift from reactive to predictive control. Such systems can help ensure safer, more reliable production while reducing waste.
Supporting this perspective, Prof. Charles Muyanja of Makerere University, emphasized the need to adopt modern technologies in the preparation and storage of fermented foods to minimize contamination and improve public perception of these products.
He also noted that some traditional practices, often tied to gender roles, can limit efficiency and productivity. For instance, manual grain milling (typically done by women), can be labor-intensive and restrictive/excluding energetic men, underscoring the need for mechanized alternatives that increase yields while easing workloads.
Prof. Muyanja also noted that some traditional practices, often shaped by gender roles, can limit efficiency and productivity. For instance, manual grain milling (typically undertaken by women) can be labor-intensive and, in some cases, exclude able and willing participants such as energetic men.
This underscores the need for mechanized alternatives that not only increase yields but also promote inclusivity while easing workloads.
At the same time, Prof. Muyanja cautioned against completely discarding traditional methods, noting their strong social and cultural value. Fermentation, he said, is often a communal activity that fosters social cohesion, and any technological transition should thoughtfully integrate both modern and traditional practices.
He further highlighted the potential of improving raw materials through plant breeding and biotechnology to enhance the nutritional value and yield of fermented foods. For example, improving sorghum varieties to reduce tannins can enable the body absorb nutrients, while microbial innovations can help achieve desirable flavors and product consistency.
Microbial innovations refer to the use of tiny living organisms such as bacteria, fungi, and yeast in new and clever ways to create products, improve processes, or solve problems in areas like medicine, food production, and the environment.
Importantly, as explained by Edgar Perez, a researcher at the Universitat Politècnica de València, for these products to access international markets, they must meet established global standards, such as those set by the European Food Safety Authority.
He added that organizations such as World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) have developed key resources, such as manuals on microbial safety, to guide producers toward compliance.
With food waste accounting for nearly one-third of global food production, fermentation presents a practical pathway toward reducing losses and advancing the goal of zero hunger, an urgent priority, particularly across Africa where food insecurity remains a persistent challenge
