Fermentceutical Research

Around 7 years ago, I had a strange dream about a new word - fermentceutical. With no idea where it might lead, and because my experiments with drying ferments and using the powders continued to absorb and inspire me (and possibly because I used to be a solicitor), I trademarked the term. It basically defines dried lacto-fermented foods. At the time, I was just embarking upon an MSc in nutritional medicine at the University of Surrey. The project module of my MSc constituted a grant proposal for research into a kimchi fermentceutical and in May 2022, my colleague and friend Katy Gordon-Smith and I self-funded and conducted the first phase of research.

This unshakeable idea of mine has now become the focus of a PhD, supervised by Terri Grassby and Kourosh Ahmadi at University of Surrey and Harsh Mathur and John Leech at TEAGASC. Through spending a little time in South Korea to learn more about kimchi and freeze drying, I was fortunate to meet Wooje Lee at the World Institute of Kimchi. Dr Lee is now also very kindly contributing to my work. My first paper, a comparative assessment of specified nutrients and biochemicals in kimchi before and after freeze drying and powdering, is now published open access in Applied Food Research. I am currently designing the final phase of my research, which involves qualitative sensory analysis of fermentceutical.

You can read the published paper on fermentceutical in Applied Food Research.