Reproducibility, Data Standards, and Metadata as Infrastructural Foundations of Food Metaengineering: An Editorial Position

Introduction: Food metaengineering is focused on obtaining transferable, engineering-interpretable results that link composition, structure, and process parameters to the functional properties of a product. However, achieving transferability of results is limited not so much by a lack of methods as by the heterogeneity of data representation, insufficient metadata in articles, and incomplete protocol descriptions, which reduces reproducibility and hinders the reuse of results.

Purpose: To present an editorial position on the role of data standards and reproducibility practices in food metaengineering and to propose a minimal set of requirements for manuscripts that ensure verifiability, comparability, and industrial applicability of research results.

Rationale: The annotation argument draws on interdisciplinary frameworks of reproducibility and replication, the FAIR principles, practices of minimal information standards in related research fields, as well as publisher policies regarding data, materials, code, and protocol availability.

Main Provisions: (1) Publication in the metaengineering paradigm should be regarded as a reproducible package of evidence rather than a descriptive report. (2) FAIR should be interpreted as criteria for the suitability of data and associated digital artifacts for reuse, including machine interoperability and traceability of provenance. (3) For key subdomains of food research, institutionalization of “minimal information” about raw materials, processes, sample preparation, and analytics is required. (4) Computational reproducibility (code, parameters, environment versions) becomes mandatory wherever conclusions depend on digital processing. (5) Standardized citation of food data enhances traceability and quality of secondary use.

Conclusion: A minimal editorial standard is proposed, including a mandatory data availability statement, provision of protocols and structured metadata, publication of computational artifacts when a computational component is present, correct identification and citation of food datasets, and explicit description of access restrictions. The expected effect is an increase in the comparability of studies, a reduction in transactional costs of reuse, and a strengthening of the “laboratory–production” linkage for research results in the field of food metaengineering.

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