Reducing salt intake from meat products by combined use of lactate and diacetate salts without affecting microbial stability

Summary In the framework of the trend towards lowering the salt content in meat products, an experiment was set up to determine combined effect of reducing the salt content with 20% or 40% and adding 2% or 3% Purasal ® Opti.Form PD 4 (a mixture of potassium lactate and sodium diacetate) on the shelf‐life of a pre‐packaged cooked meat product. By means of a challenge test with a mixture of two Lactobacillus sakei strains and a Leuconostoc mesenteroides strain, it was observed that use of lactate/diacetate mixture enabled a 40% reduction of the salt content in this cooked meat product, whereas the microbial shelf‐life was significantly increased.