Product development - Quality, Nutrition and Convenience
Objective
The objective of one of Q-PorkChains researcher teams is to develop innovative technologies for improved pork products to match consumer demands in relation to
- Quality
- Nutrition and
- Convenience
Background
Positive sensory and nutritional characteristics and convenience increase the consumer acceptance and market potential of pork and pork products. Sensory and nutritional quality can be improved by interventions at all stages of the meat chain:
- From the genetic,
- Through pig production methods,
- Through animal nutrition,
- Through selection methods for raw meat,
- Through processing technologies and
- Through packaging and distribution systems.
The product development represents a comprehensive range of pork products that cover a wide range of the most recognised European pork products like raw, cooked, fermented and dry-cured pork products.
At the processing stage, nutritional quality can also be increased:
- By reducing the level of food ingredients and additives with proven negative impacts on human health and
- By adding health promoting ingredients such as micronutrients, probiotics and other functional food ingredients.
Convenience is one of the major market trends in pork products, and consequently there is a need for innovative processing technologies in order to deliver “easy to handle”, “ready to cook” or “ready to eat” products and meals that are safe for consumers:
- New packaging materials,
- Changed distribution systems and marketing techniques.
Related to nutritional characteristics, sensorial properties and convenience there is a lack of introducing innovations in processing that can:
- Reduce nutritionally undesirable high contents of salt (sodium)
- Reduce nutritionally undesirable fat in pork products
- Increase nutritionally desirable compounds like prebiotics, probiotics, meat factor etc.
- While maintaining “culinary” and sensory qualities in minimally processed pork products.
These fields of improvement should be linked to other ‘added value’ characteristics desired by consumers e.g.:
- Diversity,
- Sustainability,
- Animal welfare,
- Ethical concerns and
- Environmental benefits.
Innovations which are currently not well accepted by consumers (e.g. irradiation, genetically modified microorganisms) will not be considered.
Expected Results
The expected results (related to the product development inside Q-PorkChains) are new approaches and innovative technologies in order to obtain:
- Nutritionally enhanced pork products
- Quality optimised pork and pork products
- More convenient pork products
Participants
The Q-PorkChains researcher team is managed by:
Institute for Food and Agricultural Research and Technology (IRTA)
Ashtown Food Research Centre (AFRC)
Danish Meat Research Institute (DMRI)
University of Helsinki (UH)
Technical University of Lodz (TUL)
Involved Industries in this Q-PorkChains team:
VION Food Group
Casademont