An official scientific journal of the European Federation of Food Science and Technology (EFFoST)



Food Control is an international journal that provides essential information for those involved in food safety and process control.

Food Control covers:

• Microbial food safety and antimicrobial systems
• Mycotoxins
• Hazard analysis, HACCP and food safety objectives
• Risk assessment, including microbial risk assessment
• Quality assurance and control
• Good manufacturing practices
• Food process systems design and control
• Food Packaging
• Rapid methods of analysis and detection, including sensor technology
• Environmental control and safety
• Codes of practice, legislation and international harmonization
• Consumer issues
• Education, training and research needs.

The scope of Food Control is comprehensive and includes original research papers, authoritative reviews, short communications, comment articles that report on new developments in food control, and position papers.

The work described should be innovative either in the approach or in the methods used. The significance of the results either for the science community or for the food industry must also be specified. Contributions that do not fulfil these requirements will not be considered for review and publication. Submission to this journal proceeds totally online. Use the following guidelines to prepare your article. Via the homepage of this journal http://ees.elsevier.com/foodcont you will be guided stepwise through the creation and uploading of the various files. The system automatically converts source files to a single Adobe Acrobat PDF version of the article, which is used in the peer-review process. Please note that even though manuscript source files are converted to PDF at submission for the review process, these source files are needed for further processing after acceptance. All correspondence, including notification of the Editor's decision and requests for revision, takes place by e-mail and via the author's homepage, removing the need for a hard-copy paper trail.

Do not submit additional copies of your manuscript by post. Authors are requested to submit, with their manuscripts, the names and full contact details (address, affiliation and e-mail) of 3 potential referees, preferably from other countries.

The Editor-in-Chief has the right to decline formal review of a manuscript when it is deemed that the manuscript is 1) on a topic outside the scope of the Journal; 2) lacking technical merit; 3) of insufficient novelty for a wide international readership; 4) fragmentary and providing marginally incremental results; or 5) is poorly written.

All contributions deemed suitable for review are read by two or more referees to ensure both accuracy and relevance, and revisions to the script may thus be required. On acceptance, contributions are subject to editorial amendment to suit house style. When a manuscript is returned for revision prior to final acceptance, the revised version must be submitted as soon as possible after the author's receipt of the referees' reports. Revised manuscripts returned after four months will be considered as new submissions subject to full re-review.

It is the author's responsibility to ensure that papers are written in clear and comprehensible English. Authors whose native language is not English are strongly advised to have their manuscripts checked by an English-speaking colleague prior to submission. Manuscripts written in poor English may be considered unsuitable for peer review and returned to the author. English language help service: Upon request, Elsevier will direct authors to an agent who can check and improve the English of their paper (before submission). Please contact authorsupport@elsevier.com, or http://authors.elsevier.com for further information.

Submission of a paper 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 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 in the same form, in English or in any other language, without the written consent of the publisher.

Types of Contributions

• Original high-quality research papers (preferably no more than 7000 words, including tables and illustrations).
• Major review articles, up to 10,000 words
• Short communications of up to 3000 words, describing work that may be of a preliminary nature but which merits immediate publication.
• Short reviews on topical subjects, up to 6000 words.
•Comment articles not exceeding 2000 words.
• Authoritative position papers from expert groups are also welcome.

Food Control also publishes book reviews, Letters to the Editor, conference reports and a calendar of forthcoming events.

Manuscript Preparation

General: Manuscripts must be typewritten, double-spaced with wide margins on one side of white paper. A font size of 12 or 10 pt is required. Lines must be numbered consecutively throughout the entire manuscript, not per page. Other than the cover page, every page of the manuscript, including the title page, references, tables etc. should be numbered. However, in the text no reference should be made to page numbers.The corresponding author should be identified (an e-mail address is mandatory). Full postal addresses must be given for all co-authors. Authors should consult a recent issue of the journal for style if possible. The Editors reserve the right to adjust style to certain standards of uniformity. Authors should retain a copy of their manuscript since we cannot accept responsibility for damage or loss of papers. Original manuscripts are discarded one month after publication unless the Publisher is asked to return original material after use.

Text: Follow this order when typing manuscripts: Title, Authors, Affiliations, Abstract, Keywords, Main text, Acknowledgements, Appendix, References, Vitae, Figure Captions and then Tables. Do not import the Figures or Tables into your text. The corresponding author should be identified with an asterisk and footnote. All other footnotes (except for table footnotes) should be identified with superscript Arabic numbers.

Abstract: Self-contained abstract of approximately 100 words, outlining in a single paragraph the aims, scope and conclusions of the paper, including three keywords for indexing purposes.

Units: All measurements and data should be given in SI units, or if SI units do not exist, in an internationally accepted unit. If you use any symbol or unit that may not be generally recognized, please include an explanatory footnote the first time it is used, to help the referees, editors and readers. Abbreviations and acronyms should only be used for unwieldy terms and names which occur frequently in the manuscript. Abbreviations should be used consistently throughout the text, and must be clearly defined in full on first use. Temperatures should be given in degrees Celsius. The unit 'billion' (10⁹ in America, 10¹² in Europe) is ambiguous and should not be used.

Mathematical and technical settings: Use the appropriate number of significant figures to express your data - they should be justifiable and reflect the necessary level of accuracy of the method. A normal maximum should be 3 - e.g. 37.1, 2.53). Detailed mathematical discussion should be placed in an appendix. Equations and formulae should be typewritten. Equations should be numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals in parentheses on the right hand side of the page. Special symbols should be identified in the margin, and the meaning of all symbols should be explained in the text where they first occur. If you use several symbols, a list of definitions (not necessarily for publication) will help the editor. Type mathematical equations exactly as they should appear in print. Journal style for letter symbols is as follows: italic (indicated by underlining); constants, roman type; matrices and vectors, bold type (indicated by wavy underlining).

References: All publications cited in the text should be presented in a list of references following the text of the manuscript. In the text refer to the author's name (without initials) and year of publication (e.g. "Steventon, Donald and Gladden (1994) studied the effects..." or "...similar to values reported by others (Anderson, Douglas, Morrison & Weiping, 1990)..."). For 2-6 authors all authors are to be listed at first citation. At subsequent citations use first author et al.. When there are more than 6 authors, first author et al. should be used throughout the text. The list of references should be arranged alphabetically by authors' names and should be as full as possible, listing all authors, the full title of articles and journals, publisher and year. The manuscript should be carefully checked to ensure that the spelling of authors' names and dates are exactly the same in the text as in the reference list.

References should be given in the following form:
Nout, M. J. R., Bakshi, D., & Sarkar, P. K. (1998). Microbiological safety of kinema, a fermented soya bean food. Food Control, 9(6), 357-362.

Mortimore, S., & Wallace, C. (1994). HACCP: A practical approach. London: Chapman and Hall.

Brown, M. H., & Gould, G. W. (1966). Processing. In C. Dennis, & M. F. Stringer, Chilled foods: A comprehensive guide (pp. 111-146). London: Ellis Horwood.

Mossel, D. A. A., & Struijk, C. B. (1998). Enteric food-transmitted pathogens of emerging significance. Inventory, transmission, morbid effects and avenues to containment relying on risk assessment. In Proceedings of the sixth international symposium on microbiology and cosmetics (pp.7-54). Ispra, Italy: European Common Market Research Centre.

Citing and listing of web references. As a minimum, the full URL should be given. Any further information, if known (author names, dates, reference to a source publication, etc.), should also be given. Web references can be listed separately (e.g., after the reference list) under a different heading if desired, or can be included in the reference list.

Illustrations

Photographs, charts and diagrams are all to be referred to as "Figure(s)" and should be numbered consecutively in the order to which they are referred. They should accompany the manuscript, but should not be included within the text. All illustrations should be clearly marked with the figure number and the author's name. All figures are to have a caption. Captions should be supplied on a separate sheet.
Colour: If, together with your accepted article, you submit usable colour figures then Elsevier will ensure, at no additional charge, that these figures will appear in colour on the web (e.g. ScienceDirect and other sites) regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in colour in the printed version. For colour reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from Elsevier after receipt of your accepted article. Please note: Because of technical complications which can arise by converting colour figures to grey scale (for the printed version should you not opt for colour in print) please submit in addition usable black and white prints corresponding to all the colour illustrations. As only one figure caption may be used for both colour and black and white versions of figures, please ensure that the figure captions are meaningful for both versions, if applicable.

Preparation of electronic illustrations: Submitting your artwork in an electronic format helps us to produce your work to the best possible standards, ensuring accuracy, clarity and a high level of detail.
• Make sure you use uniform lettering and sizing of your original artwork.
• Save text in illustrations as "graphics" or enclose the font.• Only use the following fonts in your illustrations: Arial, Courier, Helvetica, Times, Symbol.
• Number the illustrations according to their sequence in the text.
• Use a logical naming convention for your artwork files, and supply a separate listing of the files and the software used.
• Provide all illustrations as separate files.
• Provide captions to illustrations separately.
• Produce images near to the desired size of the printed version.
A detailed guide on electronic artwork is available on our website: http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions

Tables: Tables should be numbered consecutively and given a suitable caption and each table typed on a separate sheet. Footnotes to tables should be typed below the table and should be referred to by superscript lowercase letters. No vertical rules should be used. Tables should not duplicate results presented elsewhere in the manuscript (e.g. in graphs).

Preparation of Supplementary Data

Elsevier now accepts electronic supplementary material (e-components) to support and enhance your scientific research. Supplementary files offer the Author additional possibilities to publish supporting applications, movies, animation sequences, high-resolution images, background datasets, sound clips and more. Supplementary files supplied will be published online alongside the electronic version of your article in Elsevier Web products, including ScienceDirect: http://www.sciencedirect.com. In order to ensure that your submitted material is directly usable, please ensure that data is provided in one of our recommended file formats. Authors should submit the material in electronic format together with the final version of the article and supply a concise and descriptive caption for each file. For more detailed instructions please visit our artwork instruction pages at http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions

When your manuscript is received at the Publisher it is considered to be in its final form. Proofs are not to be regarded as 'drafts'. One set of page proofs in PDF format will be sent by e-mail to the corresponding author, to be checked for typesetting/editing. No changes in, or additions to, the accepted (and subsequently edited) manuscript will be allowed at this stage. Proofreading is solely your responsibility. A form with queries from the copy editor may accompany your proofs. Please answer all queries and make any corrections or additions required. The Publisher reserves the right to proceed with publication if corrections are not communicated. Return corrections within two working days of receipt of the proofs. Should there be no corrections, please confirm this. Elsevier will do everything possible to get your article corrected and published as quickly and accurately as possible. In order to do this we need your help. When you receive the (PDF) proof of your article for correction, it is important to ensure that all of your corrections are sent back to us in one communication. Subsequent corrections will not be possible, so please ensure your first sending is complete. Note that this does not mean you have any less time to make your corrections, just that only one set of corrections will be accepted. Return proofs by e-mail to proofcorrections@elsevier.com.

The corresponding author, at no cost, will be provided with a PDF file of the article via e-mail. The PDF file is a watermarked version of the published article and includes a coversheet with the journal cover image and a disclaimer outlining the terms and conditions of use. Copies of the issue can be ordered at a specially reduced rate using the order form sent to the corresponding author after the manuscript has been accepted.

Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to transfer copyright (for more information on copyright see http://authors.elsevier.com). This transfer will ensure the widest possible dissemination of information. A letter will be sent to the corresponding author confirming receipt of the manuscript. A form facilitating transfer of copyright will be provided. 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. Elsevier has preprinted forms for use by authors in these cases: contact Elsevier Ltd., Global Rights Department, The Boulevard, Langford Lane, Oxford, OX5 1GB, UK; phone: (+44) 1865 843830, fax: (+44) 1865 853333, e-mail:permissions@elsevier.com

Authors can keep a track on the progress of their accepted article, by visiting http://www.elsevier.com/trackarticle. Other questions or queries will also be dealt with via the website http://authors.elsevier.com . Contact details for questions arising after acceptance of an article, especially those relating to proofs, are provided when an article is accepted for publication. Do not contact the editor - he does not have access to this information.

Food Control carries no page charges