Almelo, The Netherlands, 19th April 2010 – “There’s good news for steak tartare fans: thanks to the HPP (High Pressure Processing) technology, the product has been improved without affecting the flavour.  Zwanenberg Food Group has successfully applied HPP in products based on raw meat and related products. This is a breakthrough when it comes to improving shelf life and safety of such products.”

So quoted Thea Dekker, product development coordinator at Zwanenberg Food Group, during a symposium of the Food Safety newsletter last Friday.

Safe and sensible, but especially tasty of course. Those are the main requirements consumers make of food products. The shelf life also plays an important role.

For some time now, Zwanenberg Food Group has had a factory where high pressure pasteurization was possible on an industrial scale. HPP is a cold pasteurization technique in which micro-organisms are effectively wiped out by means of extremely high water pressure. Pathogens and micro-organisms which cause decay, do not stand a chance with HPP.

The news now is that HPP is being applied to raw meats. The difficulty regarding treatment of raw meats lays in the fact that the pressure needed to be increased much higher than normally necessary. Above a pressure of 3,000 bar[1], products will normally become discoloured and the texture affected. Zwanenberg Food Group has invested a great deal of time and money in rendered both the recipe and the processing conditions suitable and optimal for steak tartare.

The steak tartare will be marketed in the near future, under the Zwanenberg Vers spread (Fresh) brand name, in tubs.

About Skunq

Skunq is a separate unit within the Zwanenberg Food Group that is specifically geared to innovation in the field of snacks and meal components, for both retail and out-of-home. Skunq develops, produces and markets these product itself. Such innovative products are developed to meet the requirements of consumers and clients, such as caterers, supermarkets / retailers and the hotel and restaurant trade. Products and food concepts are developed from A to Z in close consultation with clients.

Skunq makes use of new technologies in order to innovate. One such technology is High Pressure Processing (HPP), in which products are cold pasteurised; pathogens are killed without heating or the use of preservatives. This technology allows Skunq to develop products that are safe, pure and healthy. An added advantage is that the shelf life of products is also lengthened considerably, without loss of quality or flavour.

About Zwanenberg Food Group

With 1,600 employees and turnover of EUR 350 million (2008), Zwanenberg Food Group is one of the leading European producers and exporters of cold meats and meat preserves. Zwanenberg has own production locations in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States. The group sells its products under a variety of international brand names, including ZWAN (in many of the export countries) and Kips’ (in the Netherlands). The group also sells a number of well known private labels and, besides retail, has acquired a strong position in the food service segment (corporate and institutional catering, as well as sales via petrol stations, etc.) in sliced and packaged cold meats for example. Zwanenberg exports meat preserves to more than a hundred countries worldwide. 

 

For more information, please contact:

(media)

Ronald Lotgerink, CEO, r.lotgerink@zwanenberg.nl, tel. +31 6 51 53 07 09

(trade)

Retail: Ron Lenferink, r.lenferink@zwanenberg.nl, tel. +31 6 51 53 06 95

Out of Home / food service: Francesco Gribling, f.gribling@zwanenberg.nl, tel. +31 6 53 21 45 84

or via

Patrick de Leede, consultant Zwanenberg Food Group, +31 6 21 54 6995, e-mail info@catchoftheday.nl

General telephone number of Zwanenberg Food Group
 +31 546 547 000

 

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[1] 3,000 bar is a pressure roughly three times greater than the pressure on the bed of the deepest ocean.