The TransformDairy project at the University of the Azores is investigating whether bacteria associated with dairy fermentation—and the antimicrobial substances they produce—can contribute to new foods designed with both intestinal microbiota and food safety in mind. The research builds upon years of scientific work with bacteria isolated from traditional Azorean cheese.
Milk has long been one of the defining products of the Azorean landscape. It is visible in pastures, farms, factories, cheeses and in an economy that sends much of its dairy production far beyond the islands. But inside that familiar glass of milk or piece of cheese exists another world, invisible to the eye and increasingly important to science: a community of microorganisms whose properties may allow dairy products to acquire functions extending beyond nutrition. It is within this microscopic territory that an Azorean research project called TransformDairy is now working, asking whether bacteria and the substances they naturally produce might eventually contribute both to a healthier balance of the intestinal microbiota and to safer foods.
Formally titled TransformDairy — Transformation of Dairy Products: Strategies to Improve the Gut Microbiota Using Bacteriocins, the project began September 1, 2025, and continues through August 31, 2028, with total funding of €160,740. Led by researcher Susana Isabel Chaves Ribeiro, its principal beneficiary is the Fundação Gaspar Frutuoso, with the research associated with the University of the Azores’ Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and the Institute for Research in Agricultural and Environmental Technologies (IITAA). Funding comes from the European Regional Development Fund through Açores 2030 and regional resources through PRO-SCIENTIA. Now entering the second of its three years, the project remains research in progress rather than a finished product awaiting the supermarket shelf.
At its center are lactic acid bacteria, microorganisms long associated with the fermentation of foods, including dairy products. Certain strains can produce bacteriocins—antimicrobial compounds capable of inhibiting particular bacteria. TransformDairy is exploring three possible approaches: using lactic acid bacteria that produce bacteriocins, introducing previously purified bacteriocins, or developing fermented products containing these substances. The scientific ambition has two dimensions: investigating whether such approaches can contribute to the balance of the intestinal microbiota—the enormous microbial community inhabiting the gastrointestinal tract—while simultaneously examining the potential of bacteriocins to improve food safety.
The distinction between scientific possibility and demonstrated result is essential. TransformDairy has not yet announced a dairy product proven to improve the human intestinal microbiota, nor does the available project information identify consumer trials or specify whether the eventual experimental products will be cheeses, fermented milks or other dairy foods. No prototype has yet been publicly identified in the information provided. The project should therefore not be described as having created a new “healthy” Azorean dairy product. Its significance at this stage lies in the questions being investigated and in the scientific foundation upon which those questions rest.
That foundation reaches back into Azorean cheese itself. Ribeiro’s earlier doctoral research examined 114 lactic acid bacteria isolated from traditional Pico cheese, evaluating their production of bioactive compounds and possible usefulness in functional foods and industrial applications. Eight strains were found capable of inhibiting Listeria monocytogenes, the pathogenic bacterium responsible for listeriosis, while three also demonstrated activity against Clostridium perfringens. One Lactococcus lactis strain produced a bacteriocin identified as similar to lacticin 481. Other earlier University of the Azores research tested bacteriocin-producing lactic acid bacteria in fresh cheese, examining not only activity against Listeria but also technological behavior, safety, growth within the food and sensory characteristics. Those findings are not results from TransformDairy, but they explain why the present project represents continuity rather than a scientific beginning: more than a decade of investigation is now being carried forward into a new research question.
The economic context gives that laboratory work particular significance. In 2025, approximately 618.4 million liters of cow’s milk were delivered to Azorean factories. During the first quarter of 2026 alone, 49,500 tonnes of dairy products were commercialized, generating approximately €103.5 million. Around 87.5% of the volume was sold outside the Azores, accounting for 90.5% of revenue. Cheese generated the largest share of income—approximately €46.6 million—while milk represented the greatest volume, at about 31,400 tonnes. For a sector so heavily oriented toward external markets, scientific research capable of producing differentiated, technologically viable dairy products could eventually carry economic as well as nutritional and food-safety significance. But that possibility depends upon what the research actually demonstrates and whether laboratory findings can ultimately be translated to industrial scale.
There is something particularly compelling about this research taking place in the Azores. For generations, the islands transformed grass into milk and milk into cheese, turning landscape into food and food into livelihood. TransformDairy asks whether another transformation might be possible: whether microorganisms already associated with that dairy world can become part of the next generation of food science.
The answer is not yet known—and that uncertainty matters. Science advances precisely because possibility is not confused with proof.
But somewhere between a Pico cheese, a bacterium invisible to the human eye and the extraordinarily complex ecosystem within the human intestine, Azorean researchers are looking for a new way to understand one of the islands’ oldest products. The future of milk, it turns out, may begin with something too small to see.
Based on a story in Diário dos Açores-Paulo Viveiros, director. Pictures from DA.