Standardized meat products
Activa is the brand name of transglutaminase preparations produced by Ajinomoto of Hamburg, Germany. Product type Activa WM is mostly used for improving the texture of frankfurter-type cooked sausages. When used, this preparation creates stable binding between the remainders of two amino acids, glutamic acid and lysine, which are natural constituents of many protein-containing foodstuffs.
The protein network so created is to produce an extra firm product, making for the desirable “crack” when the sausage (“knackwurst”) is eaten. To quote from the manufacturer’s product statement, adding Activa WM improves the texture of frank-type cooked sausages with the bite-feel enhanced, and a high degree of juiciness assured at the same time. In canned products, it is particularly the post-sterilization texture that works out to be a disadvantage in terms of customer acceptance. Too soft a product is often seen as a result of too low a lean meat percentage in the formulation. But when Activa WM is part of the formulation, sausages so manufactured are emphasized to distinguish themselves with a distinctly excellent firmness after high-temperature heating. And when used in uncooked sausage manufacturing, Activa WM helps to cut down on necessary production time, as the manufacturer points out.
Activa WM is also promoted as a means to standardize cooked ham production. The underlying problematic situation here: changing raw material qualities entail high losses during industrial slicing processes and, as a result, frequent idle times of equipment in use. Inspection of meat deliveries upon arrival hardly permits to draw retrospective poor quality conclusions, because the pH has already become an inconspicuous factor at that point and time. As a brine constituent, the Activa enzyme product is injected into the meat where it unfolds its protein networking effect during the cooking process. In which context the company also points to trial runs where a distinct improvement in slice coherence, particularly as refers to extremely thin slices, has been achieved.
In convenience food packaging, uniform product weight and shape are decisive factors in optimum calculation. As such, and when Activa EB is used, the high quality meat coming from the cut-up station is excellently suitable for making standardized sliced meat products in an economically highly efficient process, as the company underscores in its closing statement. www.a-f-d.de.
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