Traditional home-made dry sausages produced in Sardinia: a study of the microflora

Despite the extent of pig farming and a thousand-year-old tradition of pork processing in Sardinia, in depth studies had never highlighted the quality and tradition of the island’s cured meat products The aim of this work is to carry out an investigation on the microflora of home-made dry sausages produced in Sardinia to valorise the product and to constitute a collection of strain isolated from this traditional product Five batches of sausages were produced according to traditional methods without the use of starter cultures by five different artisanal producers located in different areas of Sardinia. The evolution of different microbial group and physic-chemical (aw and pH) parameters throughout ripening were investigated. 250 isolates from MRS and 217 from MSA were characterised at species and strain level by molecular methods. The results pointed out that the product object of this study is a typical Mediterranean type of dry, naturally-fermented sausage, characterised by low acidification rates and high final pH. The bacterial microflora was mainly represented by LAB and CNC that reached high counts from the 7th day of ripening. The main species isolated were Lb. sakei, Lb. curvatus and S. xylosus. A high biodiversity at strain level was found within species.