Phosphate reduction is of important industrial relevance in the manufacturing of emulsified meat products because it may give rise to a healthier product. The effect of seven different phosphate types was tested on the physicochemical and quality characteristics to select the most promising phosphate type for further cooked sausage manufacturing. Next, phosphate mass fraction was gradually reduced. Tetrasodium di- or pyrophosphate (TSPP) and sodium tripolyphosphate (STPP) increased pH, reduced structural properties, resulted in the highest emulsion stability, lowest cooking loss and had little effect on hardness. Based on the viscoelastic properties, a minimum mass fraction of 0.06% TSPP was sufficient to obtain an acceptable quality product. Rheology proved to be a very useful tool to evaluate the quality of meat products, as it gives insight in the structure of the meat product and especially the functional properties of meat proteins. Based on the obtained results, it can be concluded that the current amount of phosphate added to emulsified meat products can be significantly reduced with minimal loss of product quality.

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The inactivation of different spoilage organisms and surrogate pathogens in a cooked ham model product by high pressure (HP) treatment (100-700 MPa, 5-40°C, 10 min) was investigated. A 5 log reduction could be achieved at ≥ 600 MPa at ≥ 25°C. Subsequently, the shelf-life of packaged sliced product was studied during storage (7°C) after treatment at 600 MPa (10°C, 10 min) in combination with caprylic acid and Purasal ® . Without HP treatment, a plate count of 6 log CFU/g was reached after 40 days, both in presence and absence of antimicrobials. HP treatment delayed this initiation of spoilage to 59 days in absence of antimicrobials. However, microbial growth was completely suppressed during at least 84 days in the HP treated products containing caprylic acid or Purasal ® . HP treatment increased drip loss but had no or little effect on colour and sensorial evaluation by a taste panel. However, the antimicrobials had a negative influence on the flavour and aroma at the concentrations used. Industrial relevance: With a steadily increasing number of commercial applications being introduced on the market, HP pasteurization is growing out of its infancy. To further support this development, there is a need of integrated studies that translate fundamental scientific findings from simplified laboratory model systems to the complexity and scale of real food products. In this work, we determined HP processing conditions to control spoilage and pathogenic bacteria in a cooked ham model product, and subsequently conducted a large pilot scale experiment comprising a total of 432 individual packages of sliced cooked ham product, in which the microbiological, physicochemical and sensorial quality was evaluated during refrigerated storage after HP treatment. In addition, the usefulness of the natural preservatives caprylic acid and lactate-diacetate as an additional hurdle was also studied. This study is one of the most comprehensive available in the literature to document the shelf-life extension that can be achieved with HP treatment of cooked ham.

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