Refrigeration solutions for the meat industry

RADIRAN has designed wall-mounted evaporators for deep-freezing tunnels with high-flow motor fans and high static pressure available together with high-efficiency coils, in order to reduce freezing time and promote the formation of smaller crystals.

To service these high cooling capacity demands, RADIRAN offers solutions and refrigeration systems using natural refrigerants (such as ammonia (R-717), propane (R-290) or CO2 (R-744) ready for commissioning thanks to their Plug & Play configuration.

Cutting or processing rooms are among the areas with the highest risk of contamination, being classified as a critical control point in the cold chain, recommending the use of equipment that reduces the microbial load in suspension through the use of air purifiers and room temperature control. For this purpose, RADIRAN has developed the intarSANIT equipment, based on the use of HEPA filtration stages and UV-C light, or heat recovery from the extraction air.

Preservation and maturation of meat

The maturation of meat represents an economic opportunity as it allows the product to be revalued in response to new consumer habits, their interest in quality and their concern for safety. For this reason, there are more and more cases of companies creating a new marketing line for matured meat. The two main lines of matured meat are:

• Wet maturation of meat, the aim of which is to control the microbiological activity of aerobic mesophilic and acid lactic acid bacteria. The meat must have a pH < 5,8, a temperature between 1 °C and 4 °C and an oxygen-depleted atmosphere. For this type of maturation, the product is vacuum-packed (or hermetically sealed) or packaged with moisture-permeable technology (water-permeable bags).
• Dry-aged meat maturation is based on the breaking down of myofibrillar proteins by the action of the enzymes present in the meat, thus softening the muscle fibres. Research carried out by IRTA (Institute of Agri-Food Research and Technology) has obtained results that make it possible to anticipate the effect of intrinsic factors (pH, fat, etc.) and extrinsic factors (temperature and RH) on microbial growth, making it possible to provide safety guidelines in this complex process. To this end, IRTA recommends keeping the temperature below 2 °C, discarding meats with pH > 5.6 and that surface water activity does not reach values below 0.95.