Nature Food (nature-food)

Journal positioning

Nature Food is the Nature Portfolio journal for research, analysis, and opinion across the entire food system — production, processing, distribution, consumption, nutrition, and the environmental, economic, and social dimensions that connect them. Its defining expectation is food-systems significance: a result that matters beyond a single crop, process, or location and speaks to how food is produced or consumed sustainably and healthily. A solid agronomy, food-chemistry, or nutrition result with no systems-level significance is a poor fit, however rigorous. This skill is a fit / venue-selection / re-framing tool. It does not replace the journal's current author guidelines. Before submitting, re-check the live Nature Food submission guidance.

When to trigger

• The author names Nature Food and wants a fit/framing check for a food-systems paper.
• A specialist agronomy / food-science / nutrition / supply-chain result must be re-framed into a food-systems-significance narrative.
• The author is choosing between Nature Food, a Nature Portfolio sibling, and a specialist agriculture or food journal.
• The author needs Nature Food's desk-reject heuristics and a credible alternative route.

Scope & topic fit

• Sustainable food production: crops, livestock, aquaculture, and agroecology when the contribution reaches system-level outcomes (yield–environment trade-offs, resilience).
• Food environment and nutrition: diets, food security, and health outcomes analyzed at population or systems scale.
• Food processing, safety, and supply chains when the advance reframes a systems problem, not just a unit operation.
• Environmental footprint of food: land, water, biodiversity, and greenhouse-gas analyses, including life-cycle and modeling studies.
• Food policy, economics, and behavior with rigorous, generalizable evidence.
• Transdisciplinary syntheses that connect production, environment, and human health.

Method & evidence bar

• The central claim must carry food-systems significance, supported by evidence appropriate to the method (field/experimental, observational, modeling, or analytical).
• Modeling and assessment studies must be transparent: stated assumptions, sensitivity analysis, and uncertainty; scenario work must justify scenario choice.
• Empirical claims need adequate replication, controls, and representativeness; survey and observational data need design and bias discussion.
• Cross-disciplinary papers must satisfy the evidence bar of each discipline they touch (e.g., both agronomic and environmental-accounting rigor).
• Data and code availability are expected for the central analysis; follow Nature reporting and data-availability policy.

Structure & house style

• Nature Portfolio format: a significance-forward abstract and an introduction that frames the food-systems problem and the gap; re-check current article types (Article, Analysis, Perspective, etc.) on the live guide.
• Main display items should carry the systems-level argument; specialist detail moves to supplementary information.
• Methods are detailed and reproducible; reporting summary and data/code statements are required per Nature policy.
• Framing should be accessible to a broad food-systems readership, not only one specialty.

Official-submission checklist

• Before giving submission-ready advice, read ../../resources/source-basis.md and ../../resources/official-source-map.md; start from the Nature Portfolio anchors, then cite the current Nature Food page you checked.
• Search the live site for "Nature Food submission guidelines" and follow the current version.
• Re-check article types, abstract/format expectations, the reporting summary, and the data/code-availability policy.
• Confirm requirements for modeling transparency, life-cycle inventory disclosure, or survey instruments if applicable.
• Re-check competing-interests, funding, author-contribution, and AI-use disclosure, and open-access terms.
• If the live official instructions conflict with this skill, the official instructions win.

Pre-submission self-check

• The contribution has food-systems significance, not just a clean specialist result.
• The advance is framed for a broad food-systems readership, with specialist detail in SI.
• Modeling/assessment assumptions, sensitivity, and uncertainty are explicit.
• Empirical evidence has adequate replication, representativeness, and bias discussion.
• Each discipline the paper spans is supported to its own evidence standard.
• Data/code availability and the Nature reporting summary are addressed.

Common desk-reject triggers

• A rigorous but narrow agronomy, food-chemistry, or nutrition result with no systems-level significance.
• Single-site, single-season, or unreplicated field/processing studies presented as broadly generalizable.
• Opaque modeling or life-cycle assessment with no sensitivity/uncertainty analysis.
• A supply-chain or policy claim with weak, non-representative, or cherry-picked evidence.
• Framing pitched to one specialty community rather than the food-systems audience.

Re-routing decision

• Crop/agronomy field result without systems framing → field-crops-research / agronomy-for-sustainable-development.
• Food composition/safety chemistry → food-chemistry.
• Agroecosystem environment focus → agriculture-ecosystems-and-environment.
• Broad earth/environment OA framing → communications-earth-and-environment.
• Plant-science mechanism → nature-plants / new-phytologist.

Output format

[Fit] High / Medium / Low (one-line reason)
[Target] Nature Food
[Topic tags] <2–3 closest food-systems topics>
[Systems significance] <why it matters beyond one crop/process/site>
[Method/evidence] <does the evidence + transparency clear Nature Food's bar?>
[Top risk] <the single most likely reason for rejection>
[Official items to re-check] <article type / reporting summary / data policy / disclosures>
[Re-route suggestion] <if not a fit, a better-matched venue>