Chr. Hansen Launches New Italian Meat Culture Range

An innovative Italian meat culture range in combination with a new more consistent and reliable production process developed by Chr. Hansen’s experts makes it possible.

20 Oct 2009 --- Exquisite taste, enhanced food safety and better cost-efficiency are some of the advantages of Chr. Hansen’s new range of meat cultures. The innovation includes a new fermentation scheme for Italian-type salamis with numerous benefits.

Delicious sausages with the correct Italian taste profile produced faster at less cost with higher food safety – it sounds like a dream, but global ingredients supplier Chr. Hansen has made the dream come true.

An innovative Italian meat culture range in combination with a new more consistent and reliable production process developed by Chr. Hansen’s experts makes it possible.

“With the new cultures and the new technology the individual salami producer gets freedom of action. At any time he can adapt the fermentation scheme to market requirements, he can sell his product early in the process because of impeccable food safety and product stability and he can accelerate drying excessively towards the end of processing hence creating a very hard surface,” explains John Jensen, Marketing Director, Meat Cultures, Chr. Hansen.

“Or he can do the exact opposite: Slow down the process to create traditional high quality flavor profiles. The choice lies with the producer. We just give him the options,” he adds.

A further advantage of the new product portfolio is better sliceability of the sausages. Convenience is a strong driver in today’s consumer market and more and more products are sold sliced and packed. Therefore a very good color stability is also a crucial parameter for the meat producer and Chr. Hansen’s Italian meat culture range delivers on that too.

In addition the new cultures show a faster and very stable pH drop, which inhibits the growth of Listeria, Salmonella, etc. in a much better way than existing cultures do – but with no compromise on the existing taste profile of the sausages.

Chr. Hansen’s new Staphylococci strains give exactly the desired taste profile even at a very fast pH-drop during the first 24 hours.

By using these innovative cultures the ripening parameters can also be changed. For instance less dry rim and shorter drying process without change of any sensory feature of the sausage can be obtained through modifying the temperature and applied humidity as well as the management of the air circulation.

“Our new starter cultures in combination with the ripening scheme recently developed with an Italian equipment supplier gives a more consistent and reliable production process with stable and equally high quality final products with the typical Italian taste profile. Furthermore a much better control of mould on the surface of the sausages has been observed in trials,” concludes John Jensen.