Journal profile · Agricultural and Biological Sciences-Food Science
NFS Journal
ISSN 2352-3646 · Elsevier · Netherlands
NFS Journal: CAS Zone 3 · Agricultural & Forestry Sciences (2025 upgraded edition); impact factor 3.7 (journal website); fully open access; APC about USD 3,400; review about 97 days (submission to acceptance, publisher); 40 articles in 2025; indexed in ESCI and Scopus.
Scope
Aims, scope and focus
NFS Journal is published by Elsevier and is in Zone 3 of Agricultural & Forestry Sciences in the CAS Journal Ranking (2025 upgraded edition). By OpenAlex counts of its recent articles, its largest topics are Phytochemicals and Antioxidant Activities, Food composition and properties and Diverse Scientific and Economic Studies, together about 24.6% of its articles. (generated from OpenAlex topic counts and CAS ranking data)
Official Journal of the Society of Nutrition and Food ScienceThe NFS Journal publishes high-quality original research articles and methods papers presenting cutting-edge scientific advances as well as review articles on current topics in all areas of nutrition and food science. The journal particularly invites submission of articles that deal with subjects on the interface of nutrition and food research and thus connect both disciplines. The journal offers a new form of submission Registered Reports (see below). NFS Journal is a forum for research in the following areas:Understanding the role of dietary factors (macronutrients and micronutrients, phytochemicals, bioactive lipids and peptides etc.) in disease prevention and maintenance of optimum healthPrevention of diet- and age-related pathologies by nutritional approaches Advances in food technology and food formulation (e.g. novel strategies to reduce salt, sugar, or trans-fat contents etc.) Nutrition and food genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics Identification and characterization of food components Dietary sources and intake of nutrients and bioactive compounds Food authentication and quality Nanotechnology in nutritional and food sciences (Bio-) Functional properties of foods Development and validation of novel analytical and research methods Age- and gender-differences in biological activities and the bioavailability of vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals and other dietary factors Food safety and toxicology Food and nutrition securitySustainability of food productionRegistered Reports: NFS Journal offers pre-registration of the study design, planned experiments, and hypothesis and, if these are deemed interesting and worth publishing by members of the editorial board and outside expert reviewers, researchers will be able to publish their pre-registered studies in the journal irrespective of the outcome of the experiments, as long as the experiments have been performed accurately and data analyses and interpretation are according to the highest scientific standards and follow the pre-registered procedures. In order for authors to react to unforeseen and exciting results, it will be possible to report additional exploratory analyses within a specific section of the Registered Reports.
From the journal's Aims & Scope
Research area (LetPub): Agricultural and Biological Sciences-Food Science
Editor-in-chief Jan FrankPublisher website
Editorial board by country: 2 in mainland China (about 5%); most named Germany 11, Italy 6, Türkiye 5, Mainland China 2, United States 2 (38 members with a country) Editorial board ↗Publisher website ·
Main research topics OpenAlex counts of recent articles; shares are approximate
- Phytochemicals and Antioxidant ActivitiesMedicine10.9%
- Food composition and propertiesNursing8%
- Diverse Scientific and Economic StudiesEconomics, Econometrics and Finance5.7%
- Human auditory perception and evaluationEngineering5.4%
- Educational Robotics and EngineeringComputer Science5.4%
- Proteins in Food SystemsAgricultural and Biological Sciences5.2%
- Microbial Metabolites in Food BiotechnologyNursing5.2%
- Meat and Animal Product QualityAgricultural and Biological Sciences4.9%
Rankings & indexing
CAS ranking and database indexing
CAS Journal Ranking
CAS Journal Ranking, upgraded edition (March 2025)Agricultural & Forestry Sciences Zone 3
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Agricultural & Forestry Sciences | Zone 3 |
| Minor | Food Science & Technology | Zone 3 |
| Minor | Nutrition & Dietetics | Zone 4 |
Top journal: noReview journal: no
CAS Xinrui Journal Ranking (March 2026)Agricultural & Forestry Sciences Zone 2
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Agricultural & Forestry Sciences | Zone 2 |
| Minor | Food Science & Technology | Zone 3 |
| Minor | Nutrition & Dietetics | Zone 3 |
Top journal: noReview journal: not marked
CAS Journal Ranking, previous upgraded edition (December 2023)Not covered
Not covered by this edition.
Database indexing
ESCIScopusDOAJLetPub
International journal early-warning lists: not listed in any editionLetPub
Indexing the journal's website claims
PubMedPublisher website
Other: Crossref
As the journal's website lists them, not checked against each database; for Web of Science editions the records above apply.
Editions, and major and minor categories, are shown separately and never merged into one zone; check which edition your institution uses before you submit or report.
Metrics
Impact metrics and publication volume
Impact
- Impact factor (publisher)
- 3.7Publisher website ·
- CiteScore 2026-06
- 6LetPub ·
- CiteScore (publisher)
- 6Publisher website ·
- SJR 2026-06
- 0.63LetPub ·
- SNIP 2026-06
- 0.95LetPub ·
- h-index
- 42OpenAlex ·
- i10-index
- 120OpenAlex ·
- 2-year mean citedness
- 3.6OpenAlex ·
- Self-citation rate
- 5.4%LetPub ·
- Share of gold OA articles
- 100%LetPub ·
Volume
- Articles per year
- 33LetPub ·
Articles by year OpenAlex count · 274 in total · the current year is incomplete
| Year | Articles | Open access | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 32 | 32 | 7 |
| 2025 | 40 | 40 | 157 |
| 2024 | 37 | 37 | 228 |
| 2023 | 37 | 37 | 361 |
| 2022 | 22 | 22 | 352 |
| 2021 | 26 | 26 | 813 |
Sources count differently and were observed at different times, so each source's own value is kept; "publisher" marks figures from the journal's website.
Review & acceptance
Review time and acceptance
Publisher-reported review time from the journal's website
97 dayssubmission to acceptance · community reports about 16 weeks
The publisher's own definition applies; dates from this journal's articles in the last 24 months are not available yet, so the publisher's figure is used.
Figures by source
- Average review time (community reports)
- about 16 weeksLetPub ·
- Submission to first decision
- 3 daysPublisher website ·
- First decision after review
- 45 daysPublisher website ·
- Submission to acceptance
- 97 daysPublisher website ·
- Acceptance to publication
- 2 daysPublisher website ·
- Submission to publication (journal-reported)
- about 15 weeksDOAJ ·
- Peer review
- Single anonymous peer reviewDOAJ
Community reports come from authors' own submissions (confidence 0.5) and are not a promise from the journal; for publisher figures, the journal's own definitions apply.
Fees & open access
APC and open-access policy
Fully open accessDOAJ
Every article is open access; authors usually pay an article processing charge (APC).
| Source | APC | Fee waiver | License | Observed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DOAJ | USD 3,400 | Yes | CC BY, CC BY-NC-ND | |
| OpenAlex | USD 2,800 / EUR 2,620 / GBP 2,240 / JPY 347,280 | — | — | |
| LetPub | USD 1,500 | Yes | — | |
| Publisher website | USD 3,400 | — | — |
The journal's website is authoritative for fees; sources were observed at different times and each keeps its own value, without averaging.
Submission
Article types and submission policies (journal website)
What to prepare2 items from the author guidelines
- Reference style
- Numbered, in order of citation
- Suggested reviewers
- Required
Article types accepted7
- letters to the editorFull-length research articles, Review articles, Registered Reports, and Letters to the Editor.Original Articles: Original articles are the normal medium of publ…Length not stated
- opinionFull-length research articles, Review articles, Registered Reports, and Letters to the Editor.Original Articles: Original articles are the normal medium of publ…Length not stated
- original articleFull-length research articles, Review articles, Registered Reports, and Letters to the Editor.Original Articles: Original articles are the normal medium of publ…Length not stated
- registered reportFull-length research articles, Review articles, Registered Reports, and Letters to the Editor.Original Articles: Original articles are the normal medium of publ…Length not stated
- research articleFull-length research articles, Review articles, Registered Reports, and Letters to the Editor.Original Articles: Original articles are the normal medium of publ…Length not stated
- reviewFull-length research articles, Review articles, Registered Reports, and Letters to the Editor.Original Articles: Original articles are the normal medium of publ…Length not stated
- review articleFull-length research articles, Review articles, Registered Reports, and Letters to the Editor.Original Articles: Original articles are the normal medium of publ…Length not stated
Policy excerpts from the journal's websiteAI use, Authorship, Conflicts of interest, License & copyright, Open access, Peer review, Preprints
- AI use Declaration of generative AI in scientific writing
Authors must declare the use of generative AI tools in the manuscript preparation process upon submission of the paper.Generative AI and AI-assisted technologies (“AI tools”) have been rapidly adopted in research and scholarly publishing, offering significant benefits while requiring clear standards for responsible and transparent use.Authors preparing a manuscript for this journal may use AI tool…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Authorship Author contributions
For transparency, we require corresponding authors to provide co-author contributions to the manuscript using the relevant CRediT roles. The CRediT taxonomy includes 14 different roles describing each contributor's specific contribution to the scholarly output. The roles are: Conceptualization; Data curation; Formal analysis; Funding acquisition; Investigation; Methodology; Project administration;…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Conflicts of interest Declaration of 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 inter…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- License & copyright Copyright
Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to complete a 'License Agreement' (see more information on this). Permitted third party reuse of open access articles is determined by the author's choice of user license.Author rightsAs an author you (or your employer or institution) have certain rights to reuse your work. More information.
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Open access Open access
Please visit our Open Access page for more information about open access publishing in this journal.
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Peer review Peer review
This journal operates a single anonymized review process. All contributions are typically sent to a minimum of two independent expert reviewers to assess the scientific quality of the paper. The Editor is responsible for the final decision regarding acceptance or rejection of articles. The Editor's decision is final. Editors are not involved in decisions about papers which they have written themse…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Preprints Preprint references
Where a preprint has subsequently become available as a peer-reviewed publication, the formal publication should be used as the reference. If there are preprints that are central to your work or that cover crucial developments in the topic, but are not yet formally published, these may be referenced. Preprints should be clearly marked as such, for example by including the word preprint, or the nam…
Source ↗Publisher website ·
Excerpts are quoted from the journal's website; "model summary" lines are written by Workers AI and checked against the text. The journal's website is authoritative.
Profile
Publication details and official links
- Publisher
- Elsevier
- Country or region
- Netherlands
- Language
- English
- ISSN
- 2352-3646
- Society / sponsor
- Society of Nutrition and Food Science
- Official links
- Journal homepage ↗DOAJ
- Submission system ↗Publisher website
- Author guidelines ↗DOAJ
- Aims & Scope ↗DOAJ
- Special issues ↗Publisher website
- APC information ↗DOAJ
- Fee waivers ↗DOAJ
- Open access statement ↗DOAJ
- License & copyright ↗DOAJ
- Peer review process ↗DOAJ
- Editorial board ↗DOAJ
- Plagiarism policy ↗DOAJ
FAQ
Frequently asked questions about NFS Journal
What CAS zone is NFS Journal in?
In the 2025 upgraded edition of the CAS Journal Ranking, NFS Journal is in Zone 3 of Agricultural & Forestry Sciences, and in Zone 3 of the minor category Food Science & Technology / Nutrition & Dietetics. In the 2026 Xinrui edition it is in Zone 2 of Agricultural & Forestry Sciences. Zones from different editions, and from major and minor categories, are not interchangeable.
What is the impact factor of NFS Journal?
The journal's website gives an impact factor of 3.7; this is the journal's own figure, as LetPub lists none for it; CiteScore 6, h-index 42.
How long does peer review take at NFS Journal?
The publisher reports about 97 days (submission to acceptance); authors report an average review time of about 16 weeks. Article statistics cover accepted papers only, publisher figures follow the journal's own definitions, and community reports come from authors' own submissions; none is a promise from the journal.
What are the manuscript requirements of NFS Journal?
According to the journal's author guidelines: Reference style: Numbered, in order of citation; Suggested reviewers: Required. A model extracted these from the author guidelines and each was checked against the text; check the latest version on the journal's website before submitting.
Where are the editorial board members of NFS Journal based?
Of the 38 board members whose country the journal's board page names, 2 (about 5%) are in mainland China; the countries named most often are Germany (11), Italy (6) and Türkiye (5). Counted from the institutions listed on the board page; for reference only.
Which databases index NFS Journal?
According to LetPub and DOAJ records, NFS Journal is indexed in ESCI, Scopus and DOAJ. The journal's website also lists PubMed; that list has not been checked against each database.
Is NFS Journal open access, and what is the APC?
NFS Journal is a fully open-access journal. APC about USD 3,400.
Sources and updates
The facts on this page come from LetPub, Publisher website, OpenAlex, DOAJ; every figure is tagged with its source and the date it was observed, and conflicting values are kept per source. LetPub source page: view ↗ (archived 2026-08-25). Last updated: .