Seasonal concept
Old World prosciutto and salame production at Daniele is a process that is based on simulating the four seasons of the year, Stefano says. “Dry curing is all about vacillations of humidity, up and down and up and down,” he says, and striking the right balance to avoid too much moisture on the surface of the products without drying out the inside of the meat is critical.
“You need both cold and hot,” Stefano says. “Prosciutto is the product of four seasons. It starts with the winters when they slaughter the hogs and they go through the salting. Then in the spring time temperatures go up a little bit and then summer and fall. By the next winter, the products are ready to sell. What we’re doing inside here is we are mimicking seasons.”
The robots that manage the movement of the prosciutto hams and salame are programmed not only to keep the products progressing through the aging rooms but also circulating empty racks to be washed. They also drive themselves to charging stations during downtime to get ready for their next “assignment.”
With a trained and honed sense of smell, Stefano can easily tell what part of the plant he is in, even if he were blindfolded. During one stop during a recent tour of the new plant, he picks up the scent of the natural nitrification that occurs in the hams, saying, “as the DNA of the meat breaks down it releases this incredible smell,” inhaling with his nose in the air and smiling.
