Guidelines for Authors

Please read the guidelines below then visit the journal’s submission site ScholarOne Manuscripts (manuscriptcentral.com) to upload your manuscript. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned. Remember you can log in to the submission site at any time to check on the progress of your paper through the peer review process.

Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of Food Science of Animal Products will be reviewed.

As part of the submission process you will be required to warrant that you are submitting your original work, that you have the rights in the work, that you are submitting the work for first publication in the Journal and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you.

1  Open Access

This journal is a peer reviewed, fully open access journal owned by Beijing Academy of Food Sciences (BAFS). BAFS retains copyright of the overall compiled journal and the compiled issues. The article is universally and freely accessible via the internet in perpetuity, in an easily readable format immediately after publication.

1.1 Article processing charges

Open Access provides free and immediate online access to the scholarly literature for anyone in the world to read, distribute and reuse. Food Science of Animal Products offsets all the costs associated with our high-quality publishing service through article processing charges (APC): articles that are accepted for publication by our Editors-in-Chief following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to authors, institutions or funders.

The APC of Food Science of Animal Products is USD $1200 (or EUR €1050, CNY ¥8000), excluding taxes, for each article accepted for publication. For all articles submitted before the 31st December 2026 the APC will be waived, making it free to publish in the journal.

1.2 Access right

This is an open access journal: all articles will be immediately and permanently free for everyone to read and download. Permitted third party (re)use is defined by the following Creative Commons user licenses.

1.3 User rights

Permitted third party reuse is defined by the following user license:

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND) 

Allows users to copy and distribute the Article, provided this is not done for commercial purposes and further does not permit distribution of the Article if it is changed or edited in any way, and provided the user gives appropriate credit (with a link to the formal publication through the relevant DOI), provides a link to the license, and that the licensor is not represented as endorsing the use made of the work. The full details of the license are available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.

Note: If you need to comply with your funding body policy, you can apply for the CC BY license after your manuscript is accepted for publication.

1.4 Author rights

For open access publishing, this journal uses a licensing agreement. Beijing Academy of Food Sciences will retain copyright alongside scholarly usage rights, and Tsinghua University Press Ltd. will be granted non-exclusive publishing and distribution rights.

1.5 Publishing schedule

This journal is published quarterly.

1.6 Contact details

Editorial Office of Food Science of Animal Products

Email: foodsciap@126.com

2 What Do We Publish

2.1  Aims and scope

Food Science of Animal Products is a peer-reviewed, open access international journal that publishes the latest research findings in the field of animal-origin foods, involving food materials such as meat, aquatic products, milk, eggs, animal offals and edible insects. The research scope includes the quality and processing characteristics of food raw materials, the relationships of nutritional components and bioactive substances with human health, product flavor and sensory characteristics, the control of harmful substances during processing or cooking, product preservation, storage and packaging; microorganisms and fermentation, illegal drug residues and food safety detection; authenticity identification; cell-cultured meat, regulations and standards. 

The objectives of this journal are to provide an authoritative platform for scholars worldwide to publish scientific theories and fundamental experimental studies related to animal-origin foods, and showcase innovative technological breakthroughs for developing nutritious, healthy, delicious and safe animal-origin human foods.The papers collected by this journal will highlight innovative scientific research, and will be published efficiently and disseminated widely through such an advanced international publishing platform.

The scope covered by Food Science of Animal Products includes: 

1) Raw materials and their quality: The relationship between the origin, genes and feeding methods of animals and the quality of meat, aquatic products, dairy products and eggs, the mechanisms underlying quality changes, food processing characteristics, and flavor and sensory evaluation.

2) Nutrition and function: The analyses, digestion and absorption, metabolic mechanisms, and efficacies of the nutritional and functional components of animal-origin foods.

3) Safety and detection: Risk assessment and control techniques for harmful substances during processing and cooking, detection of spoilage microorganisms and drug residues, and authenticity identification.

4) Food engineering: Effects of ultra-high pressure, ultrasonic, microwave, irradiation and other technologies on the quality and safety of animal-origin foods, and processing technologies for prefabricated dishes. 

5) Bio-fermentation: The isolation and identification of microorganisms from meat, aquatic products and dairy products, the fermentation characteristics of probiotics and their effects on product quality, and studies on cell-cultured meat.

6) Packaging, storage and transport: The research and development of preservation technologies and preservatives for meat, aquatic products, dairy products and eggs, food quality changes during storage and transport, and the research and development of new packaging materials and intelligent packaging technologies. 

7) Reviews on special topics: The frontier research progress, policies, regulations and standards for animal-origin foods.

2.2  Types of paper

Contributions falling into the following categories will be considered for publication: Original research papers, reviews. Please ensure that you select the appropriate article type from the list of options when making your submission. Authors contributing to special issues should ensure that they select the special issue article type from this list.

3  Ethics in Publishing

3.1  Plagiarism

We are committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors.

Food Science of Animal Products and Tsinghua University Press Ltd. take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software, iThenticate. Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarized other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article; taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author's institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action.
3.2  Ethics approval and consent to participate
Manuscripts reporting studies involving human participants, human data or human tissue must:

Include a statement on ethics approval and consent (even where the need for approval was waived);

Include the name of the ethics committee that approved the study and the committee's reference number if appropriate.

All materials must adhere to high ethical and animal welfare standards. Any use of animals must be based on ethological knowledge and respect for species-specific requirements for health and well-being. A statement indicating that the protocol and procedures employed were ethically reviewed and approved, and the name of the body giving approval, must be included in the Methods section of the manuscript.

3.3  Consent for publication

If your research or manuscript contains any individual person’s data in any form (including any individual details, images or videos), consent for publication must be obtained from that person, or in the case of children, their parent or legal guardian. All presentations of case reports must have consent for publication.

3.4  Contributor’s publishing agreement

Before publication we requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement, and grant Tsinghua University Press a license to publish, including to display, store, copy, and reuse the content.  

3.5  Studies in humans and animals
If the work involves the use of human subjects, the author should ensure that the work described has been carried out in accordance with The Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki) for experiments involving humans. The manuscript should be in line with the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals and aim for the inclusion of representative human populations (sex, age and ethnicity) as per those recommendations. The terms sex and gender should be used correctly. Authors should include a statement in the manuscript that informed consent was obtained for experimentation with human subjects. The privacy rights of human subjects must always be observed. All animal experiments should comply with the ARRIVE guidelines and should be carried out in accordance with the U.K. Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act, 1986 and associated guidelines, EU Directive 2010/63/EU for animal experiments, or the National Institutes of Health guide for the care and use of Laboratory animals (NIH Publications No. 8023, revised 1978) and the authors should clearly indicate in the manuscript that such guidelines have been followed. The sex of animals must be indicated, and where appropriate, the influence (or association) of sex on the results of the study.

4  Editorial Policies

4.1  Peer review

This journal operates a double blind review process. All contributions are sent to a minimum of two independent expert reviewers to assess the scientific quality of the paper. The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for the final decision regarding acceptance or rejection of articles. The Editor-in-Chief's decision is final.

Food Science of Animal Products only accepts online submissions. A submitted manuscript is initially evaluated by the Managing Editor to check academic misconduct. Considering the research area of the manuscript, it will then be assigned to one of the Associate Editors for evaluation. When a manuscript is considered unqualified for at least one of the following principles, the Associate Editor has the right to reject formal review: 1) on a topic outside the scope of the Journal; 2) lacking of originality or technical merit; 3) focused on foods or ingredients that are of narrow significance; 4) with fragmentary results; 5) is poorly written. If a manuscript meets basic requirement, the Associate Editors will then invite at least three independent reviewers with relevant expertise for double-blind peer review. Taking the reviewers' opinions into consideration, the Associate Editors will evaluate the manuscript comprehensively and then will make a final decision. A Scientific Editor will help make the final decision when necessary. If a manuscript is accepted, the Responsible Editor will then be responsible for reviewing the format, English grammar and language of the manuscript before sending it back to authors for revision.

To avoid bias, manuscripts of the editorial board members including Editors-in-Chief, Scientific Editors, Associate Editors and other members will not be handled by him/herself in any stage of the review process. If a manuscript is accepted, the Responsible Editors will then be responsible for reviewing the format, English grammar and language of the manuscript before sending it back to authors for revision.

 4.2  Declaration of competing interest

All authors must disclose any financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence (bias) their work. Examples of potential conflicts of interest include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, and grants or other funding. Authors should complete the declaration of competing interest statement and upload to the submission system at the Attach/Upload Files step. Note: Please do not convert the .docx template to another file type. Author signatures are not required.

4.3  Submission declaration

Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis), that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere including electronically in the same form, in English or in any other language, without the written consent of the copyright-holder.

4.4  Changes to authorship

This policy concerns the addition, deletion, or rearrangement of author names in the authorship of accepted manuscripts:
Before the accepted manuscript is published in an online issue: Requests to add or remove an author, or to rearrange the author names, must be sent to the Journal Manager from the corresponding author of the accepted manuscript and must include: (a) the reason the name should be added or removed, or the author names rearranged and (b) written confirmation (e-mail, fax, letter) from all authors that they agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement. In the case of addition or removal of authors, this includes confirmation from the author being added or removed. Requests that are not sent by the corresponding author will be forwarded by the Journal Manager to the corresponding author, who must follow the procedure as described above. Note that: (1) Journal Managers will inform the Journal Editors of any such requests and (2) publication of the accepted manuscript in an online issue is suspended until authorship has been agreed.
After the accepted manuscript is published in an online issue: Any requests to add, delete, or rearrange author names in an article published in an online issue will follow the same policies as noted above and result in a corrigendum.

4.5  Copyright

Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to complete a ‘Journal Publishing Agreement’. Acceptance of the agreement will ensure the widest possible dissemination of information. An email will be sent to the corresponding author confirming receipt of the manuscript together with a ‘Journal Publishing Agreement’ form or a link to the online version of this agreement.
If excerpts from other copyrighted works are included, the author(s) must obtain written permission from the copyright owners and credit the source(s) in the article.

4.6  Author rights

As an author you (or your employer or institution) have certain rights to reuse your work.

4.7  Role of the funding source

You are requested to identify who provided financial support for the conduct of the research and/or preparation of the article and to briefly describe the role of the sponsor(s), if any, in study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the paper for publication. If the funding source(s) had no such involvement then this should be stated.

4.8  Language

Please write your text in good English (American or British usage is accepted, but not a mixture of these).

5  Preparing Your Manuscript

5.1  Use of word processing software

It is important that the file be saved in the native format of the word processor used. The text should be in single-column format. Keep the layout of the text as simple as possible. Most formatting codes will be removed and replaced on processing the article. In particular, do not use the word processor’s options to justify text or to hyphenate words. However, do use bold face, italics, subscripts, superscripts etc. When preparing tables, if you are using a table grid, use only one grid for each individual table and not a grid for each row. If no grid is used, use tabs, not spaces, to align columns. Note that source files of figures, tables and text graphics will be required whether or not you embed your figures in the text. To avoid unnecessary errors you are strongly advised to use the 'spell-check' and 'grammar-check' functions of your word processor.

5.2  Artwork, figures and other graphics

Figures supplied in color will appear in color online.

5.3  Supplementary material

This journal is able to host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc) alongside the full-text of the article. These will be subjected to peer-review alongside the article.

6  Article Structure

6.1  Subdivision - numbered sections

Divide your article into clearly defined and numbered sections. Subsections should be numbered 1.1 (then 1.1.1, 1.1.2, ...), 1.2, etc. (the abstract is not included in section numbering). Use this numbering also for internal cross-referencing: do not just refer to 'the text'. Any subsection may be given a brief heading. Each heading should appear on its own separate line.

6.2  Introduction

State the objectives of the work and provide an adequate background, avoiding a detailed literature survey or a summary of the results.

6.3  Material and methods

Provide sufficient detail to allow the work to be reproduced. Methods already published should be indicated by a reference: only relevant modifications should be described.

6.4  Theory/calculation

A Theory section should extend, not repeat, the background to the article already dealt with in the Introduction and lay the foundation for further work. In contrast, a Calculation section represents a practical development from a theoretical basis.

6.5  Results

Results should be clear and concise.

6.6  Discussion

This should explore the significance of the results of the work, not repeat them. A combined Results and Discussion section is often appropriate. Avoid extensive citations and discussion of published literature.

6.7  Conclusions

The main conclusions of the study may be presented in a short Conclusions section, which may stand alone or form a subsection of a Discussion or Results and Discussion section.

6.8  Appendices

If there is more than one appendix, they should be identified as A, B, etc. Formulae and equations in appendices should be given separate numbering: Eq. (A.1), Eq. (A.2), etc.; in a subsequent appendix, Eq. (B.1) and so on. Similarly for tables and figures: Table A.1; Fig. A.1, etc.

6.9  References

Please ensure that every reference cited in the text is also present in the reference list (and vice versa). Any references cited in the abstract must be given in full. Unpublished results and personal communications are not recommended in the reference list, but may be mentioned in the text. If these references are included in the reference list they should follow the standard reference style of the journal and should include a substitution of the publication date with either 'Unpublished results' or 'Personal communication'. Citation of a reference as 'in press' implies that the item has been accepted for publication.

Indicate references by number(s) in square brackets in line with the text. The actual authors can be referred to, but the reference number(s) must always be given.

Example: “..... as demonstrated [3,6]…”, “Barnaby and Jones [8] obtained a different result ....”

Reference to a journal publication:

[1] L.B. Sun, Z.Y. Zhang, G. Xin, et al., Advances in umami taste and aroma of edible mushrooms, Trends Food Sci. Technol. 96 (2020) 176-187. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tifs.2019.12.018.

Reference to a book:

[2] W. Strunk Jr., E.B. White, The Elements of Style, third ed., Macmillan, New York, 1979.

Reference to a chapter in an edited book:

[3] G.R. Mettam, L.B. Adams, How to prepare an electronic version of your article, in: B.S. Jones, R.Z. Smith (Eds.), Introduction to the Electronic Age, E-Publishing Inc., New York, 1999, pp. 281-304.

7  Submit Manuscript

7.1  How to submit your manuscript

Food Science of Animal Products is hosted on a web based online submission and peer review system powered by ScholarOne Manuscripts. Visit https://mc03.manuscriptcentral.com/fsap to login and submit your article online.

Note: Please check whether you already have an account in the system before trying to create a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the journal in the past year it is likely that you will have had an account created.

7.2  Title, keywords and abstracts

Please supply a title, an abstract and keywords to accompany your article. The title, keywords and abstract are key to ensuring readers find your article online through online search engines.

7.3  Information required for completing your submission

Provide full contact details for the corresponding author including E-mail, mailing address and telephone numbers. Academic affiliations are required for all co-authors. These details should be presented separately to the main text of the article to facilitate anonymous peer review.

You will be asked to provide contact details and academic affiliations for all co-authors via the submission system and identify who is to be the corresponding author. These details must match what appears on your manuscript. At this stage please ensure you have included all the required statements and declarations and uploaded any additional supplementary files (including reporting guidelines where relevant).

7.4  Permissions

Authors are responsible for obtaining permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere.

7.5  Submission checklist

The following list will be useful during the final checking of an article prior to sending it to the journal for review. Please consult this Guide for Authors for further details of any item. Ensure that the following items are present:
One Author designated as corresponding Author:

• E-mail address
• Full postal address
• Telephone and fax numbers

All necessary files have been uploaded
Keywords

• All figure captions
• All tables (including title, description, footnotes)

Further considerations
Manuscript has been "spellchecked" and "grammar-checked"

• References are in the correct format for this journal
• All references mentioned in the Reference list are cited in the text, and vice versa
• Permission has been obtained for use of copyrighted material from other sources (including the Web)
• Color figures are clearly marked as being intended for color reproduction on the Web (free of charge) and in print or to be reproduced in color on the Web (free of charge) and in black-and-white in print
• If only color on the Web is required, black and white versions of the figures are also supplied for printing purposes

8  On acceptance and Publication

 If your paper is accepted for publication after peer review, you will first be asked to complete the contributor’s publishing agreement. Once your manuscript files have been accepted, your article will be prepared for publication and can appear online within an average of 30 working days.

8.1  Production

The Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will made available to the corresponding author via our E-mail to the corresponding author and should be returned promptly. Authors are reminded to check their proofs carefully to confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence and contact details are correct, and that Funding and Conflict of Interest statements, if any, are accurate.

8.2  Online publication

One of the many benefits of publishing your research in an open access journal is the speed to publication. With no page count constraints, your article will be published online in a fully citable form with a DOI number as soon as it has completed the production process. At this time it will be completely free to view and download for all.

8.3  Promoting your article

Publication is not the end of the process! You can help disseminate your paper and ensure it is as widely read and cited as possible.