Besides their basic nutritional role, dietary proteins contain bioactive peptides which are encrypted in their sequence and may modulate different body functions such as digestive, cardiovascular, immune and nervous systems, and therefore contribute in maintaining consumer health. Currently, milk proteins are considered to be the major source of bioactive peptides. The occurrence of these peptides has already been reported in fermented milk products such as yogurt, sour milk or kefir and some of them have been shown to confer health benefits. This review focuses on different strategies that could be employed to enhance the production of bioactive peptides from the milk proteins that will be consequently used to functionalize the fermented milk products. Three types of strategies are developed. The first exploits the proteolytic system of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) or food grade enzymes or combination of both to release the functional peptides from the milk proteins directly in the fermented milk products. The second concerns the supplementation of the fermented milk products with the bioactive peptides obtained outside of the product through the hydrolysis of the purified proteins by the same enzyme sources. Finally, the last consists in the production of the bioactive peptides, initially identified from the milk-proteins, by microorganisms using recombinant DNA technology. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.