Microbial Biotechnology

An article about environmental microbiology and dairy products was rejected by Professor Kenneth Timmis after I submitted it to the journal EM. He advised me to submit it to Microbial Biotechnology, which he is the editor-in-chief of. Although I felt that my article was not a perfect fit for Microbial Biotechnology, I respected the editor's suggestion as he seemed interested in the article. After transferring the submission to Microbial Biotechnology, I recommended Kenneth Timmis as the handling editor in the cover letter, stating that he had suggested the transfer. However, the manuscript was ultimately handled by Editor Hui Wang, causing a delay of over a week. I thought it was being prepared for review, but it was directly rejected due to the mismatch between the theme and the journal. This process took about a month. I am not quite sure about the reasoning behind these actions and hope that others can learn from this experience. Currently, this article has been accepted by a journal in the first quartile with a score of over 6.

Translation:
Submitted on November 19th,
Minor revision on January 6th, with 20 issues.
Completed response to reviewer's comments on February 2nd, and replied.
Received revised comments on February 25th, with only one remaining challenging issue.
Replied to the final reviewer's comment on March 25th.
Accepted on March 26th.