SOPPRESSATA OF MARTINA FRANCA: INNOVATION STRATEGIES FOR A TRADITIONAL APULIAN SAUSAGE

"Soppressata" of Martina Franca is an Italian dry-cured sausage, listed by Ministry of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies among over 4,000 niche agrifood products of cultural and gastronomic heritage. This product is still manufactured using ancient artisanal procedures, curing selected minced meat cuts and fat with salt, spices and a typical cooked grape must or wine reduction (vinocotto). Meat (ca. 700 g) is then stuffed in natural casing, seasoned for over 60 days, under controlled temperature and humidity. Despite a consolidated production process, the industrial production requires to improve safety and quality standards, adopting good processing practices without the use of chemical additives. The workpackage OR8 of Innotipico project (cod. 3QKDQX3 Apulia Regional INNONETWORK programme 2018-2019) is improving the production towards a standardized manufacturing process, mediated by the utilization of selected microbial starters (bacteria and fungi), autochthonous and/or retrieved from CNR-ISPA Microbial Culture Collection (ITEM). These microorganisms were studied for their cured meats pro-technological skills in, reducing nitrites, enhancing proteolysis and lipolysis, counteracting food-borne pathogens, spoilage agents and mycotoxins producers. Preliminary results have shown that, Staphylocoocus xylosus ITEM 18282 (Quintieri et al., 2018) and S. carnousus ITEM 18283 bacterial strains, are well adapted to "soppressata" environment, maintaining an average microbial load of 2 log cycle higher than autochthonous staphylococci of uninoculated sausages. Among fungi, Penicillium salamii ITEM 15302 (Magistà et al., 2016), and the autochthonous P. nalgiovense SM36, P. solitum SM22 ensured homogeneous mycelial coverage, avoiding contamination by other spoilage or ochratoxigenic fungi. Technological parameters (pH, Aw, ORP, weight loss) were consistent with the values of traditional "soppressata" of Martina Franca or other Italian long-seasoned dry-cured sausages. Interestingly, compared to control samples, sausages treated with the selected staphylococci strains showed significant increase in CIELab redness (a*) and an appreciate reduction of hardness. Moreover, some favourable differences in sensory scores were found in fungi-treated "soppressata", when compared to control sausages. The ongoing industrial research and experimental development activities will allow to improve the production process of "soppressata", combining innovation and traditional protocol.