The overall aim of DOMINO is to attribute health benefits to traditional Fermented Foods (FF), whilst developing novel FF which address the changing societal demands. First, we intend to demonstrate the health impacts of FF-based diet on a healthy population to establish how fermented food consumption shapes the gut microbiome and provides health benefits to the consumer using a longitudinal human nutritional trial. We will use milk kefir, a traditional, widely consumed animal-based FF to do this. In parallel, we will target adults suffering from metabolic syndrome to better focus on health biomarkers and establish if consumption of this FF leads to improved clinical outcomes in this cohort. Second, we intend to demonstrate that innovative strategies to tackle sustainability and nutritional health can be developed through the reasoned design of tailor-made FF-derived microbial consortia. For this, six food case studies, selected as representative of the wide diversity of plant-based FF prototypes will be developed. This aims to move toward environmentally sustainable food sources, while maintaining a healthy nutritional diet in the transition from animal to plant-based products. Finally, we aim at demonstrating that restoring trust in the food system is possible if relevant actors are actively engaged in the co-design and pilot production process. Several living labs will be set up to ensure engagement of citizens and a targeted diversity of actors from the food system with the objective to co- create and validate that the outcomes of DOMINO are relevant to the society. Furthermore, for pilot-scale and business exploitation purposes, several SMEs with a proven record of innovation in the food sector are members of the consortium. The multi-actor approach will guide our activities, design, dissemination and communication, to reach actors in a targeted and interactive way that fosters dialogue. This strong societal engagement will improve the uptake of the project outputs. To reach the overall aim of DOMINO, the project has set the following objectives: