Dear Readers, Authors, and Indexing Organizations,

The Italian Journal of Food Science (IJFS) has entered its 38th year with a significant setback, unfortunately. The journal that steadily improved its impact factor (IF) and citation index over the years (3.3 in 2024: Journal Citation Reports (JCR), and 5.1 in 2024: Scopus CiteScore metrics) was placed on a 2-year hold by Clarivate because of inconsistent or incorrect citations by some authors. Upon our request, these authors acknowledged their errors, as reflected in the corrigenda included in this issue.

We accepted Clarivate’s decision, although we viewed incorrect citations as primarily authors’ responsibility, with only a minor oversight by the editorial team and referees. Therefore, we formally appealed to Clarivate for our journal’s reinstatement in the Web of Science (WoS)-indexed journals’ list.

At the same time, to prevent similar events from occurring in the future, we have made several key changes to our Journal’s aims and manuscript evaluation procedures while maintaining its status as ‘under the aegis of the University of Perugia’ and under the seal of the Italian Society of Food Science (SISTAl) (www.sistal.org). On this occasion, I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to all professors and SISTAL members for their valuable contributions as members of IJFS’s co-editors team.

As part of our ongoing commitment to maintaining high academic standards and ensuring the publication of relevant and high-quality research, the IJFS has undertaken a comprehensive internal review of editorial processes and published content. I am pleased to inform all our readers, authors, reviewers, and indexing organizations about the recent updates to the journal’s editorial policies and scope:

First, the IJFS has refined its scope to focus more specifically on core areas of food science, including:

• Food processing and technology

• Food chemistry and analysis

• Food safety and microbiology

• Nutrition and functional foods

Second, we implemented our artificial intelligence (AI) policy (https://www.itjfs.com/index.php/ijfs/aip) and use of plagiarism detection software (i.e., Crossref Similarity Check powered by iThenticate).

Since February 2026, these refinements are being applied to all new submissions. Manuscripts that are outside the journal’s more narrowly defined scope will not be considered for publication.

Furthermore, the IJFS editorial board will conduct a comprehensive review of all articles accepted prior to the revision of editorial policies and scope definitions. Articles will only be accepted if they comply with these updated guidelines.

The IJFS editorial board emphasizes that all articles published prior to this update were accepted according to the editorial policies and scope definitions in place at the time of submission. These publications remain part of the scholarly record and continue to be accessible.

We reaffirm our commitment to:

• Rigorous and transparent peer review.

• Ethical publishing practices.

• Strengthening the scientific quality and relevance of the published content.

We appreciate the continued support of our authors, reviewers, and readers as we move forward with these improvements.

Sincerely,

Prof. Paolo Fantozzi

Editor-in-Chief, IJFS