Recent advances in cured raw ham manufacture

ABSTRACT

Cured raw hams are a valuable and popular group of meat products. The consumption and international trade have increased during the last years, therefore new technologies to accelerate the production process and to increase product quality and safety are needed. In the current review, an overview of European protected cured raw hams is presented. Furthermore, traditional methods for cured raw ham production together with recent advantages in the techniques for pretreatment (trimming, blade tenderization, and freeze-thawing), curing/salting (tumbling, vacuum impregnation, pulsed pressure, ultrasound, pulsed electric fields, simultaneous thawing/salting), drying/ripening (Quick-Dry-Slice-process, oil drop application, high temperature short time process) and postprocessing (vacuum and modified atmosphere packaging, high hydrostatic pressure, high pressure carbon dioxide, high pressure carbon dioxide with ultrasound) are described. Moreover, application techniques and effects of protective cultures and starter cultures, such as molds, yeasts, coagulase-negative staphylococci and lactic acid bacteria, on cured raw ham quality and safety are reviewed.

KEYWORDS:

• Raw ham processing
• curing techniques
• meat starter cultures
• microbiota
• protective cultures
• coagulase-negative staphylococci

Acknowledgments

RB and AM were supported by the AiF within the program for promoting the Industrial Collective Research (IGF) of the German Ministry of Economics and Energy (BMWi), based on a resolution of the German Parliament. Project number AiF 17687 N.