Cooked, Cured and Processed Meat Products
Food items: Bacons, Beefburgers, Black Pudding, Charcuterie, Chopped Pork and Ham, Cooking Sausages, Corned Beef, Frankfurters, Haggis, Hams, Luncheon Meats, Meat Jerky, Meat Slices, Ox Tongue, Pastrami, Pâtés, Pepperoni, Potted Meats, Rillettes, Roast Meats, Salami, Smoked Reindeer, Smoked Venison, Terrines, Wurst Sausages, other items
Recommended gas mix
The gases and mixtures listed above are for general guidance. To identify the optimum gas for your product and process, we recommend you undertake a product trial, with the help of an Air Products MAP gas specialist. If you would like a specialist to contact you to discuss this more click here. Storage temperature Achievable shelf-life Principle spoilage organisms and mechanics Food poisoning hazards include |
Typical MAP machines Typical types of package Examples of typical MAP materials Lidding and/or pillow pack film: Bulk |
The pricipal spoilage mechanism for meat products are microbial growth, colour changes and oxidative rancidity. In cooked, uncured, meat products, the heating process should kill vegetative bacterial cells, inactivate degradtive enzyms, and fix the colour. Problems with such products arise primarily from post-process contamination and/or poor hygiene and handling practices.
Some uncooked, uncured, meat products (such as beefburgers and British sausages) will contain sulfur dioxide (often added in the form of sodium metabisulfite). This additive (use of which is rescrited to products having a minimum of 6% cereal content) is an effective preservative against a wide range of spoilage mechanisms.
Cured meat products, wether cooked or not, owe their characteristic pink colour to the use of nitrite which interacts with the myoglobin in the meat to form nitrosylmyoglobin. Although this pigment is fairly stable it is prone to oxidative bleaching, especially when eyposed to light. Cured meat products should therefore be packaged with the exclusion of oxygen. The addition of nitrite and salt will inhibit most food poisoning bacteria. This inhibitation may, however, be compromised in products formulated with reduced levels of salt, nitrite or other preservatives. Caution must be exercised in assessing the potential effects of any changes in products formulation. Simple cooked meats without any added preservatives may be at risk from growth of Clostridium botulinum under anaerobic MAP and incorrect chilled storage.
Meat products containing appreciable levels of unsaturated fat are liable to be spoiled by oxidative rancidity, but MAP with the elimination of oxygen will inhibit this.
